Politics: Anglo's Billion? - Show me the Money!!
By
Colin Kennedy
€24 Billion. How much is that? How much could you buy for that? If it was in one pile, how big a pile would it be?? In the news, we hear about these telephone number sized amounts every day "€24 billion to Anglo Irish Bank", "€7 billion to Irish Nationwide Building Society", but to the common folk such as myself, it is an inconceivable sum.
1 Billion seconds ago it was 1959
1 Billion minutes ago, Jesus walked the Earth
1 Billion hours ago, our ancestors lived in the Stone Age
1 Billion days ago, no-one walked on 2 feet
Lets try and put it in some frame of reference that makes sense. Firstly, whenever you write a BILLION, rather than spell it out, use the zeroes!! For example, Anglo Irish Bank is now getting the following from us - €24,000,000,000,000. That is a lot of zeroes. When writing out a billion in digits, Americans use 9 zeroes, but in Europe we use 12 zeroes. Most Calculators take 10 or 11 characters, so on most calculators you can't actually type a billion.
Just for kicks, here's some fun stuff €24,000,000,000,000 could buy you:
1) 16 billion panels on the lotto - well if your not in...
2) 60 billion Cigarettes - or cancer...
3) 4.8 Billion Pints - Paarrrrttttyyyy!!
4) 20 Billion Litres of milk
5) Pay the average industrial wage (30k) to every person in Ireland for.....178 years???!!!
€24,000,000,000,000 is bailing out Anglo Irish Bank and we, the Irish people, have to pay it back. And get this - there will be, get ready - NO RETURN for this !!! Nothing, nada, nil. If we burned the money, we'd at least get some heat from it for a few weeks!!
Now that I have put it in terms we can identify with, what would it pay for in terms of services for our country?? Much needed services!
1) Fund the Irish Health Service for 2 years
2) Fund Social Welfare for 2 years
3) Pay National Pension Reserve for 8 years
4) Fund Education budget for 2.5 years
5) Fund Government Spending on Transport for 10 years
6) Pay the Gardaí for next 15 years
7) Run the Prisons for next 50 years
8) Pay the State OAP for 25 years
9) Pay Child Benefit for 10 years
10) Fund the National School Building Project for 60 years
Surely somewhere amid these 10 suggestions is a better use of the money? Remember through all this, that Anglo has no branches, no tellers, no current accounts, no ATM's.. It is, or was an investment bank, mostly foreign investments and mostly larger depositors and bond holders.
There is still one question that no leader has yet been able to satisfactorily answer...
The Government running our country say €24,000,000,000,000 is "going into" Anglo and it is most unlikely we will see any return on it. So my question is - where is the money actually going?? Who gets it?? If it is an 'investment' - why won't it come back?! Surely it's paid to SOMEONE to cover losses or something? It MUST go somewhere... so WHERE??? I urge you to ask that question of your local TD, and dismiss any vague statements about bond holders and so on... WHERE DOES OUR MONEY GO? SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!
See www.budget.gov.ie/budgets/2010