Only $2 trillion, are you sure it's enough?

Some if not most of our elected leaders have been making a money grab lately under the premise of saving our country. The number of dollars commited to be spent will be well over $2,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo (thats trillion) or $2000 billion by the end of February with the various bank bailouts and the so called stimulous plans.

I was just reading an article in the Mar09 edition of Popular Science. The article was about the amazing, barely concievable construction projects under way around the world. They call it Extreme Engineering. Here are the projects they describe and the costs:

• A 3 tower skyscraper that will be 3300 feet high. It will hold seven 30 story high neighborhoods each with apartments, offices, hotels, markets, and a large open town squarefor each neighborhood. The current tallest building in the world is as tall as 2 Empire State buildings stacked on end. This new building will be as tall as 3 Empires. Cost 7.37 billion
• A 35 mile long tunnel through the base of the Alps that will allow trains to travel at 150mph through it. THey have been at it for 13 years already and it will take another 8 to complete. cost $8 billion 
• Amsterdam is building a huge underground city center under the citys canals. The space will be 6 stories high and 31 miles long. It will contain malls, sports arenas, roads, housing, etc....cost $14.4 billion
• A bridge build on quicksand in Dubai, previously thought unbuildable due to the unstable basethat will be the highest arched bridge ever, by twice. Cost $817 million
• A cruise ship that will hold 6300 guests. thats 2000 more than the next largest ship. It will have a park the size of a football field in the center of the ship complete with grass and trees. cost $1.2 billion     

All of these amazing projects are being built for the bargain basement price of just $31.8 billion.

That means with the money spent on just the most recet $800 billion stimulous plan,  Americans could have 25 sets of these projects, or we could have 108 of the worlds tallest skyscrapers. 2 for each state and then some. Or over 4 million Americans could live in the 667 worlds largest cruise ships that we could buy. Heck for the 2 trillion that we will have spent, 10.5 million people could be permanantly on cruise.

You think we oughta ask the entire populations of Maine

New Hampshire Hawaii Rhode Island Montana Delaware South Dakota Alaska North Dakota Vermont District of Columbia Wyoming  if they want to go on permanant cruise?

The idea that the money that Congress and the Prez have decided to spend could pay for 12 states worth of residents living on cruise ships, is absurd but also amazing. I for one will be watching to see if Americans will get anything so grand for their money.