Bailout total 12.8 trillion

Bloomberg today reported the total cost of the bailout so far to be 12.8 trillion dollars. (story)

We are definitely in uncharted territory now! This is a near incomprehensible number. It is, for example, the number of miles travelled by light in 2 years, at 186,000 miles per second.

Or consider this: to give away this much money, you'd have to give away a million dollars a day, every day, for 35,000 years; you'd have to have started when we were hiding in caves from saber-toothed tigers to reach 12.8 trillion.

It's also three times the current value of all the gold in the world.

Who knew we were so rich! We really could have made education first-rate and free, provided universal affordable health-care, and switched to 100% green energy years ago! Who knew?!

Steps toward an energy solution: Redefine Useful Work and Wealth

a thoughtful post by George Mobus over at Question Everything- something we need to think about - SM

"...Suppose we define useful work as that work which allows society to maintain a steady flow of exergy (net energy available to do work) at a level sufficient to maintain a steady-state population at a reasonable level of material comfort with equitable distribution of that material wealth. In other words, work which maintains a stable social environment without growth that robs non-human parts of the Ecos. This does not preclude development of new and better forms of material wealth, increasing the true satisfaction of every human, since that might be achieved through science and technology — doing more with less.

"What it does mean is that the total population of the planet must remain at the carrying capacity, the sustainable number that can live in balance with the rest of nature for as long as we can envision. It means obtaining energy from truly renewable sources rather than fossil fuels (which establishes an upper bound on the size of a sustainable population). And it means identifying the kinds of products and services that sustain human well being rather than self-indulgent hedonism. It means abolishing the notions of rich and poor. It means abolishing the notion of profits and interest as we understand them now. It means recognizing our mental, intellectual, and individual wisdom limits and establishing a form of governance that will prevent those who would succumb to irrational desires (like the desire to get rich!) from doing so. We already have laws that prevent us from doing direct harm to one another. We will need laws that prevent us from doing indirect harm as well.."

Read Dr. Mobus's full article here