Do you know who Donald & Samuel Newhouse Jr. are? Forbes has them tied in 100th place on the Forbes billionaire list each with a net worth of $7.3 billion. The brothers are on the same list which includes 891 individuals from all over the world with a net worth of at least $1 billion. That is a lot of people with a lot of money.
Even though I deal with fairly large sums of money on a regular basis, I still have difficulty putting one billion into perspective. After all, a billion is just a thousand millions.
I was sent this email and it helps understand just how large a billion of anything is:
- A billion seconds ago was 1959
- A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive
- A billion hours ago was the stone age
- A billion days ago no one walked the earth on two feet
The same email said the US Government spends $1 billion in 8 hours and 20 minutes.
Anyone care to check the math?

Hey, how's the weather up in Iowa? This hasn't been a good weather week for your state, so it seems.
Posted by: dimes | June 13, 2008 at 02:40 AM