This has been sent via e-mail and I think may have been around for a while.

However, I think it is worthy to be put up for people to read and really think about.

Quoted from Ross Greenwood of Money News.
What is a Billion?
How many zeros in a billion???
This is too true to be funny...
The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A.  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C.  A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D.  A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

NOW THIS IS UNDISPUTABLE!!!
NO MATTER WHAT YOUR POLITICAL LEANINGS.

Quoted by: Ross Greenwood of Money News..

Right now the Federal Government is at pains to tell everyone - including us the mug-punters and the International Monetary Fund, that it will not exceed its own, self-imposed, borrowing limits.

How much?    $200 billion.   And here's a worry.
If you work in a bank's money market operation; or if you are a politician; the millions turn into billions and it rolls off the tip of the tongue a bit too easily. but every dollar that is borrowed, some time, has to be repaid. By you, by me and by the rest of the country.

Just after 5 o'clock tonight I did a bit of math for Jason Morrison ( Sydney radio presenter). But it's so staggering its worth repeating now.

First though; here's what Ex-P.M. Rudd has been saying about - what he calls - these temporary borrowings

Remember Those Words :  Temporary Deficit.

The total Government debt could end up around $200 billion.
So here's a very basic calculation ….. I used a home loan calculator to work it out..... it's that simple..
$200 billion is $200,000 million.

The current 10 year Government bond rate is 4.67 per cent. I worked the loan out over a period of 20 years. Now here's where it gets scary ...... really scary.

The repayments on $200 billion, come to more than one and a quarter billion dollars - every month - for 20 years. It works out we - as taxpayers - will be repaying $15.4 billion in interest and principal every year ... $733 for every man woman and child - every year.

The total interest bill over the 20 years is - get this - $108 billion.

Remember, this is a Government, that just 18 months ago, had NO debt. NO debt.

In fact it had enough money to create the Future Fund, to pay the future liabilities of public servants' superannuation, and it had enough to stick $20 billion into the Building Australia Fund last year ......
 
Alan Jones Comment...... this is frightening: Hmmmmm??

He continues... a note that was sent to me which explains that the six leading members of the Government, from Mr Rudd down, the top six have a collective work experience of 181 years, but only 13 in the private sector.

If you take out of those 13 years the number that were spent as trade union lawyers, that total 11, of the 181 years, only two years were spent in the private sector.

So out of those 181 years:

- no years spent running their own business  
- no years spent starting their own business
- no years spent as a director of a family business or a company
- no years as a director of a public company
- no years in a senior position in a public company
- no years in a senior position in a private company
- no years working in corporate finance
- no years in corporate or business restructuring
- no years working in or with a bank
- no years of experience in the capital markets
- no years in a stock-broking firm
- no years in negotiating debt facilities with banks
- no years running a small business
- no years at the World Bank or IMF or OECD
- no years in Treasury or Finance.

But these people have plunged Australia into unprecedented debt, and now threaten to torpedo employee share schemes, which they plainly don't understand.

Well, in a way you can't blame them.
It's clear the electorate did not do their homework, because the Gov't is there by right.

And they are Labor and people vote for them because Labor is good for the working family ..........right???