The amount of money being thrown around these days is not just staggering but also bewildering. How many times have you heard someone confuse one million with one billion for example? And others use phrases like, "That’s billion with a ‘b’" to distinguish between the relatively paltry million.
These days though we are hearing the word "trillion" a lot more. Million. Billion. Trillion. They all basically sound the same. Like dime, nickel, quarter. Are they really that much different? It is amazing that they are indeed very much different. In fact, in order to get a billion of something you have to have a thousand million of them. Then to get a trillion of them you need a thousand billion.
More remarkable is how many millions of something you need to get a trillion of them. Let’s supposed that in addition to paper money in denominations of ones, tens, twentys, and one hundreds that the FED just happened to print up for convenience a one million dollar bill. It would have printed on each corner, "1,000,000" and below would be "ONE MILLION DOLLARS." (Oh hey, I just realized, there is no "$" symbol on US money. Hmmmmm.)
If you could get a legitimate one, would you like to have a ONE MILLION DOLLAR bill? I suspect you would. It would pay for a lot of things. In fact, for most people it would completely pay off all their loans and would also carry them through tough times in case they had to leave their job. A million dollars is a lot of money to a person. Yes, a ONE MILLION DOLLAR bill is a lot of money.
So with these one million dollar bills, how many of them would you need to have $1 Trillion? It is astonishing to realize that you would need ONE MILLION ONE MILLION DOLLAR bills to reach $1 Trillion. A million times a million. To write all that out is $1,000,000,000,000. I learned today that Zimbabwe is now printing a one trillion dollar bill (correction: a $100 trillion! ). It is worth something like $30 or $300 US dolllars because of their currency’s hyperinflation.
But I keep hearing how the TARP, the government stimulus, the unfunded liabilities, and all that stuff are putting the US somewhere between $1,200,000,000,000 and $65,000,000,000,000 in debt. Literally mind-numbing numbers for most people. So let’s average the two and round it to 30 trillion. With 6 billion people on the planet, that works out to be $30,000,000,000,000 divided by 6,000,000,000. To simplify by getting rid of excess zeros say $30,0000/6 which is equal to $5,000 of debt for every man, woman, and baby on the planet.
I’m hoping that this is the peak. I’m hoping that we will not have to start using the word quadrillion. But what can I do about it?
We are in the middle of watching the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, super-duper extended director’s ultra specuatcular release. Nine hours of DVD bliss. Watching all of those dark battle scenes, sword swing after sword swing accompanied by those “schwiing” and “chiing” sounds, then arrow piercing’s thwoosh.
Hours later the big screen darkens and I return to my small screen and read about how China may cease purchasing more US debt and how the dollar may fall. I hear the echos of schwiings and thwoosh sounds still. Will the “one currency to rule them all” be thrown into the fires of Mordor? What then of our gold rings and gold coins?
“Make haste my lord. The hour is drawing neigh. The battle begins at dawn.” May the battle for Middle Earth be won!
I took the song written by Mark T. Hebner at Index Funds Advisors along with their original paintings and charts and made a music video for your enjoyment. Have a look and let me know what you think. Oh, and here’s the link for the High Quality version at YouTube.
I produced the video on my new 13" MacBook using the iMovie software that came with it. Amazing where computing, communications, and the internet has come since my first PC XT clone that I built in 1986.
Now that AIG has been taken over by the USA, the Barclay’s English Premiere League soccer team Manchester United has revealed their new kit. The uniforms will retain the same colour scheme, but will have their new sponsor’s logo prominently displayed on the front.
“It is business as usual for us,” said a spokesman for the Glazer family.
The new logo features the new sponsor’s initials “USA” in the same font and inside the same white rectangle as the previous sponsor. The spokesman dismissed reports of a completely new logo featuring the image of Federal Reserve Bank chairman Ben Bernanke.
Get physically fit as well as financially fit. You’ll be running a 5K in only 12 steps. Great music to get you physically functional and timeless words of investment wisdom to get you financially free. Put this one in your playlist to keep forever.
I’m interested not only in your financial fitness, but also in your physical fitness. Get off the couch and get running or jogging with the Mad Money Machine Couch to 5K Running Plan in 12 Steps based upon the plan originally described at Cool Running. That’s 12 graduated running plans starting with Step 1 that alternates between 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking. The plan moves you all the way up to Step 12 where you will achieve a full 30 minutes of continuous running.
I’ve put together some great music to make your jogging effortless. Just listen for my cues on when to start and stop running for each step. Keep running on the same step until you feel comfortable that you can move up to the next one. It doesn’t really matter how long it takes you to get to step 12, as long as you’re up off the couch!
To help you spend your time, in addition to enjoying great music I’ll also give you an overview of each of the 12 Steps for Active Investors. You’ll not only get in physical shape but also in financial shape at the same time. Learning while running! These timeless tips worth memorizing provide an overview to Mark Hebner’s book, Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors. You’ll learn what it means to be an active investor and why you don’t want to be one! By the end of these 12-Steps, you’ll be a 5K runner and a couch investor.
I have created a 20-question survey for you the listener and reader to help me make the Mad Money Machine better. Would you please take a few moments to completely answer each of the 20 questions and let me know what you’re thinking?
Here’s a fun little game. Can you guess the identity of the two Harvard Law students shown in the photo to the left? Especially the guy on the left and the guy in the middle. The guy on the right we don’t care about.
You may want to read Patrick Byrne’s (of Overstock.com) description of Jim Cramer. It is kinda long, so I’ll have to read it some time later this week myself.
This message came from an investor who has provided me with some very useful research from time to time:
"Mike Belkin, who writes a weekly technically-based look at lots of markets—the only technical service to which I subscribe—notes today that last week equity fund flows netted to a $22.9 billion inflow, broken down as $3.3 billion of mutual fund outflow, and $26.2 billion of ETF inflow. His inference is that the Fed/Treasury is buying ETFs. Just so you know, Mike is an ultimate insider, although he views things with a very jaundiced eye, and views them from Seattle. He ran a Salomon prop desk for years, and is the opposite of a conspiracy theorist or a perma-anything—he’s very good at noting crosscurrents and catching shorter term countertrend moves within broad longer term trends."
The reason I consider this credible is that I was told back in 2000 by my derivative trading buddies that the Fed, known as the Turk, would place orders in S&P futures. Note that the Fed has no responsibility for the health of the stock market despite what its actions would lead you to believe.
I find this all rather hard to believe. Surely neither the Fed nor the government would intervene in the workings of the free market. What would they do if their bet lost? Who would pay?
Now that AIG has been taken over by the USA, the Barclay’s English Premiere League soccer team Manchester United has revealed their new kit. The uniforms will retain the same colour scheme, but will have their new sponsor’s logo prominently displayed on the front.
