Taking a new analytical tack on the economy, we’ve decided to consider the $700B bailout plan through volumetric analysis. Given the weight and volume of a US Quarter, as provided by the US Mint, we now understand why Congress is having trouble in deciding what to do.
$700 billion would be a pile of 2,800,000,000,000 quarters … filling about 3 MILLION cubic yards! Put another way, the $700 billion in quarters would weigh in at 14 BILLION lbs!
So what do those numbers mean?
If you were to pour all of these quarters out of a plane into a pile on the Great Plains of America, you’d end up with a huge pile, only about 10% smaller than the Great Pyramid in Egypt!
That is, 10% smaller in height and 10% smaller in weight. (Note, if you want to see my calculations, drop me an email.)
No wonder Congress is having trouble deciding what to do; moving such a huge amount of metal would take a lot of consideration from anyone.
What do I think they should do with it?
Obviously we need to build The Great Quarter Pile of Chicago to amaze and confound scholars for ages to come.
Imagine how many hours of parking tickets can be bought with those quarters, so Americans can park their Chelsea tractors and indulge in their national sport – shopping!
Since many malls have free parking, perhaps a better use of this money is to give it to the American public and ask them to go shop, shop. What better kick-start does the economy need?
@ Shefaly
Distribution of so many quarters to the public would certainly increase the number of pay phone calls and gumball purchases, but I am not sure if those parts of the economy are in the same slump the rest of it is.
Does anyone know the total number of quarters that are currently in circulation? I would guess that in order to pay $700 billion in quarters could also be a good plan to increase employment.
@ Mark –
You’re probably right. Those who used to work in the financial markets can still do so … and they will still be making lots of money!
@ Mark
Surprisingly, it wouldn’t provide that many new jobs. For each state quarter which has been created so far, there have been about 800 million coins made. So this bailout would only be the equivalent of producing the quarters for four states. I do wonder how they’d deliver the quarters to everyone…
…uh-oh, my math was off a bit there. Forgot a few zeroes. In fact, all the quarters for this bailout would be 70 times more than all of the quarters produced for all 50 States, so yeah, the U. S. Mint would need to hire some additional help.
@ Conall
It seems like that may require a lot more employees. Additionally, if the CEOs had to take the golden parachute in quarters, I bet they would settle for a lot less money.
Rather than giving $700 billion to the guys who put us in this rut to begin with, why not cut that cost in more than half by giving each and every one of the approximately 300 million Americans $1 million dollars? I vote for my plan.
@ Operandi – Does the maths on that work out? I’d sure like an extra $1 million in cash to stuff under the mattress. Heck, with that much cash, I’d probably be able to make my mattress out of cash – and then some!
@ Conall
If it isn’t, well sit tight, it will be. There is hardly anything that may remain unaffected by this. The blame, for a change, belongs to all of us, not just them, the banks.
@ Shefaly – I think you’re right. Unless something positive happens soon, we may all want to get paid in quarters. At least then we’ll have solid metal to use in bartering or in building a new house when we get turfed out of our own!
Guess what I just saw on cnn.com? It was an analysis of TRILLION dollar bailout package in the USA.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/04/trillion.dollars/index.html
I wonder how much bigger that would make the pyramid?