STAFF EDITORIAL

Seven hundred billion dollars. Think about that figure for a second. Try to comprehend the enormity of a number this large. It’s tough to do.

Take a seven and add 11 zeros to it. It stretches pretty far across a page.

$700,000,000,000. That help at all? Many European countries don’t use the term “billion” as we do in America. Instead they use the term “thousand million.” Many French and Italians, for example, would say $700 thousand million. Whatever the reasoning for this, it does help you get a better grasp on such a figure.

As most of us are aware, $700 billion dollars is what the federal government has allotted to bail out corporate lenders and investors who nearly sent this country’s economy into a tailspin.

The number is almost incomprehensible; that is, of course, until you consider the fact that the U.S. is approximately $10 trillion in debt.

That’s $10,000,000,000,000.

Things have gotten so ridiculous that the National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing number.

Needless to say, it doesn’t seem like the U.S. is doing so hot financially. But there’s another problem here. It seems that in an era in which our government is spending $400 million per day on the Iraq War, according to some estimates, Americans are becoming a little too comfortable with dollar amounts that carry more zeros than a bowl of Cheerio’s.

It’s a scary prospect to consider that $700 billion really doesn’t phase us much anymore.

The problem with this is when we become dismissive or desensitized to numbers such as these, we begin to lose perspective when it comes to true scope of their implications.

In an effort to take such a number and make it a little more tangible, consider the following:

With $700 billion dollars, the U.S. government could have given all 300 million Americans — men, women, children, elderly — a $2,300 check and still have $10 billion to spare. With that $10 billion, the government could pay for four years of schooling for approximately 250,000 Americans — 50,000 in each state.

Or, we could use the entire allotment to pay for college educations. In which case, 17.5 million people would be afforded four years of college at an institution where tuition costs $10,000 per year.

The country could have effectively begun the implementation of a universal health care system. According to an estimate by the American Medical Student Association, the cost of implementing a universal health care system in the U.S. would be $34 billion-$69 billion per year. So, with $700 billion, the government could provide free health care for at least 10 years.

In an effort to fight world hunger, the U.S. government could have purchased approximately 785 billion Volcano Tacos from Taco Bell to distribute around the world.

If you attempted to count to 700 billion, at a rate of one number per second, it would take you approximately 22,242 years.

Had we taken the $700 and tagged on the extra $100 plus million that was added to the bailout, and put it towards leveling the national debt, we could have lowered it by approximately 10 percent, leaving us with about $8 trillion left to pay off.

Eight trillion dollars. Think about that figure for a second.