How much is $700 billion?
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My colleague, Steve Mullis, is putting together some graphical depictions of how much $700 billion is -- the current estimated amount of the big financial bailout being debated in Congress. This isn't one of them, but this is the largest bill in U.S. currency. $100,000.
It would take 7 million of these to make up $700 billion. These bills are not in circulation. And, besides, only 42,000 of these were printed.
So we'd have to use these:
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We'd need 7 billion of them, of course. Each bill weighs one gram. Four-hundred-fifty-four bills equals one pound. So $700 billion in $100 bills weighs 15,418,502 pounds -- 7,709 tons.
At current weight limits, it would take
24
51 railroad freight cars to deliver the cash.
