Math and Michael Jackson

J. and I don't have any particularly strong connections with Michael Jackson, since he was a bit before our time (Thriller came out when we were babies). But we did start talking about how one can possibly spend over 400 million dollars (MJ died over $400 million in debt).

$5000 we can grasp pretty well: trip to England, new bike for J.
$100,000: pay down mortgage
$200,000: buy a farm

Anything beyond this range exceeds the grasp of my imagination. How do you spend $1 million? $10 million? When I try to think of this as pocket change, which it seems to have been for MJ, I am stymied.

J. calculated that, in order to spend $400 million in 10 years, you would have to spend $3.62 every second, non stop. Without sleeping. That's like buying some outrageous Starbucks concoction every second for 10 years. Yikes.

Money, money

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I don't want that tax rebate. It's just going straight into savings, in spite of what Bush wants us to do. Why are we increasing our debt just so consumers can continue spending? It's supposedly to help cushion the fall as the spending ballon bursts, but consumers are still going to have to learn to spend less--why dangle that carrot in front of them?

Americans do not understand the concept of living within their means. There's a commercial playing now, where some guy goes into a store to look at big-screen TVs, and the song is: "I want it all...and I want it now." That summarizes the state of things.

The cynical misanthrope in me just had to say something, whether or not you wanted to hear it.