700 billion dollars.

Wow, 700 billion dollar bailout.

A few weeks.. or was it months?.. or maybe it was yesterday.. I can't tell time.. Anyways, at some point in the past I ranted about the lost opportunity that was the Iraq war and how they could have used the money on several other projects. That amount was 500 billions dollars. Now they want to spend 700 billion.

For comparison, canada's national debt is now 467 billion dollars. Aiii!

To be fair they say that they'll get the money back.. Well, most of it.. probably.

It's only ~2000$ per man, women and child in the US. Canada's national debt is ~15000$ per person which is still pretty bad given that Canada's population is about 33 million vs the US' 300 million or so.

Congress, at this writing, is balking at this amount. Honestly, I don't blame them. This is a ridiculously large amount of money and as much as I can appreciate the occasional need to prevent contagion, this is on a greater scale then.. well.. anything I've ever hear of. Honestly, I'd give this a miss too without some really convincing evidence that they know exactly what their doing.

I wonder if Colin Powell would consider giving another speech.