One K20D for every man, woman and child on the planet!

[yvon_bourque1]

You would have to live in a cave not to know about the bailout of the financial institutions proposed by the government

of the United States of America.

 

The proposed sum is seven hundred billion dollars. That's 700 followed by nine zeros ($700,000,000,000). If you look

at the national debt of the USA, it ranges between seven to nine trillions dollars, depending on where you get the

information. One trillion is 1 followed by twelve zeros (1,000,000,000,000)

 

I was trying to come up with a tangible example to show what one trillion dollars represents. Well, if you were born at

the same time as Jesus Christ, and still living today, you would have had to save roughly $1,365,000 (that is 1.365

million dollars) every day to have one trillion dollars today, give or take a few thousands. (That is not counting any

accrued interest)

 

Another way to look at this is that seven hundred billions dollars could purchase a K20D ($1,200) for roughly 583

million people. That is enough to purchase a K20D for every man, woman and child in America, plus a great Pentax

DA* lens to go with it.

 

Now, assuming that the national debt is at nine trillion dollars, that would be enough to purchase 7.5 billion K20Ds,

which would equate to one K20D for about every man, woman and child on planet earth. However, they would have to

skip the DA* lens.

 

That would surely put Pentax on the map!

 

How did we ever get to this position?

 

Thanks for reading.

 

P.S. I am not advocating any political preference herein, just stating facts. You either cry, laugh or joke about it. I'm

doing all three!

[xpiotiavos]

"How did we ever get to this position?"

 

our greed?

[leicaglow]

Yvon, that's a great way to support the Japanese economy!<g> Let me just say "we" does not include those of us who refuse to live on credit, buy a house with stupid mortgage, buy everything on credit and max out credit cards, not saving money, etc., etc. I thought it was common sense, but apparently not everyone figured it out.

[ronald_moravec1]

Agree with Michael above. But there is an underlying problem. Through Fredie Mac etc it has been government policy to offer the "mortgages" to anybody. The program was expanded to force private banks to do the same using anti redlining rules. Then the money barons saw a way to to really clean up on the bad policy. Well why not? They keep the profits. If the company fails, the government picks up the tab. Win win. And they retire will a golden parachute worth more than 10000 common folk will make in a life time. They deserve it because of their "financial expertice."

 

So you see we can do whatever is prudent and proper and forces beyond our control are setting us up for destruction.

 

In order to play the game, I guess I will open my camera bag and hope someone drops in a new slr.

[dugger]

That's hitting the nail on the head Ronald.

[musings]

Agree with all said above. If I ran my companiy into the ground like these bozos, I would have been shown the door without a penny to my name, put in jail, or both. Toss the "barons" onto the street and give all of us a new K20!

[geoffs]

When mortgages were offered to people with "no income", is when the music stopped and the lights were turned on....

[personalphotos]

Borno says if he had $25 Billion he could feed all the people in Africa and stop both Aids and Malaria. Very sad

that 3.5% of the bailout could accomplish so much.

 

It's simple minded and would never happen but I'd have government take the banks over, Sell all the assets, Seize

every dime and item of property that any senior banker owned. Then regulate the entire industry.

 

I know I'm north of the 49th parallel but watching all this has been an interesting and sad spectator sport.

There's lots of reasons, Greed being a big one. Ridiculous (long) political campaigns* that can only be afforded

when the politician is open to being owned by a few deep pocketed "investors". Deregulation of almost everything.

Maybe next it's time to deregulate the judicial system, let the criminals regulate themselves and open the jails.

Wonder how that would work?

 

Very interesting that socially bailed out bankers is somehow OK when social health care is a devilish plot to

overthrow the free world.

 

*Up here a complete (yes complete) political campaign is no more than 45 days. Leaders campaigns take a month.

Imagine electing the party leader in 30 days! We also have a federal election here now. Our Prime Minister called

it at the end of August and the vote is October 14th. It is so refreshing to have a campaign that short. With

today's media sources, there is no reason to have and election that drags on for 2 years, costs hundreds of

millions of $$ and is forced to be funded by large corporate "donations". No wonder American politicians help the

rich companies that funded the campaigns rather than the population. They are owned by those companies and

special interests.

[markus maurer]

Water,food, a home and human (& animal & nature) rights for everyone.

Have a look at the free video "Zeitgeist" if you are open minded at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/dloads.htm

[bob_marz]

All very good points. It truly is becoming very disgusting that enormous sums of money are being squandered on wars and this bailout when it could be used for so many other important things such as: poverty, medicare, social security, health care, and energy independence to name just a few.

 

Yvon, when do we get our new camera?

[yvon_bourque1]

Bob,

 

If everything goes according to plan, it will come in the mail within the next three months. It's a form of tax relief and it is meant to invigorate the failing economy. By enabling all tax payers to take a good picture of their home before being evicted, and by also making all the camera capable of taking pictures in the USA only, the administration foresee a gain by keeping the photography within the US. It is assume that the growth of US made photographs will increase ten folds.

 

Each camera will be equipped with a DA* 16-50mm lens in order to capture the big picture as well as zooming in the future.

 

P.S. I am just joking, and hope that nobody takes offence at my comments.

[fritz_carlsson1]

"How did we ever get to this position?"

The blasted Illuminati with their one-eyed pyramid, obviously!

[andrew robertson]

Let the banks fall. Our current currency is counterfeit anyway. I can't believe that you can trade paper and green ink for actual

gold!

[thebs]

Because we Americans are ...

 

- Bad at math, let alone half are clueless when it comes to amortization

 

- Point at other people to excuse our own stupidity, the old "if your friend jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge" cliche is long overdone

 

- Under the false belief we are still capitalists, when we're actually facist (government mandated business/monopoly), capitalism died between the '60s and '80s (from healthcare to Wall Street)

 

This is just the last 20-40 years coming back to haunt us, and we deserve it.

[rparmar]

It is unfortunate that many regular folk get crunched when the fiction we call an economy collapses. Perhaps the USA will have to change from their war economy to something more sustainable. The entire planet will benefit. Would that I live to see it.

[thebs]

The problem isn't the "war economy" in the US, it's the "entitlement economy." Most Americans need to stop reading the media and actually hit the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It's amazing how much waste goes on, in this administration (especially when the Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House 2001-2006), the previous administration (especially 1993-1994 and 1999-2000), etc... Despite common belief, entitlements and socialist spending has balooned during the current administration from 2001-2006, and it was only reduced the last time there was a Democrat in the White House with a Republican Congress (1995-1998 largely, although many things popped in 1999-2000).

 

In reality, the US has become a country arguing between socialist entitlements (Democrats) and facist monopolies (Republicans). We left Capitalism back in the '80s, which was a movement that started in the '60s. We don't even have "free market healthcare," but facist/forced/rule-laden healthcare. It's not about "regulation" but it's about "control." Do you want the government doing it all (Democrats)? Or do you want a government-mandated private monopoly doing it all (Republicans)?