Thousand million???

iei044775

It drives me feckin mad everytime Fine Gael say "thousand million" instead of "billion", do they think we're stupid?

P. Breathnach

iei044775 wrote: »

It drives me feckin mad everytime Fine Gael say "thousand million" instead of "billion", do they think we're stupid?

Perhaps they think we are not American.

Do you feel better now that you have had your grumble?

RATM

Its actually a good ploy by FG when describing the govt. wastage to the public. A lot of people (myself included) have no real concept of what a billion is. We do have a concept though of millions as many play for millions on lottery games frequently. So to say a thousand million rather than a billion emphasises how much money these bailouts are actually costing us.

'NAMA is going to cost the taxpayer eighty thousand million euro'.

Now that's frightening. I can easily equate that in my mind to 80,000 millionaires all losing their million euro fortune at the same time. Billion doesn't cut the mustard as well, its a term bandied about so much in this debacle that its actually become nearly cliched and meaningless.

Fighting Irish

At least find something decent to complain about, jesus

Manic Moran

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Perhaps they think we are not American.

Do you feel better now that you have had your grumble?

Depends on when he was educated and where he is.

The 'Billion' (9 zeros) used to be an Americanism, officially known as short scale. In 1974 the UK officially changed from the long scale (a billion = million million) to the short scale, but some other countries in Europe, eg Italy, still use the long scale.

NTM

dan_d

It's for added effect.
And likely trying to drive into everyone's skulls exactly the magnitude of what we owe.
Which is a lot.

knird evol

They may also at their choice say 'A million thousands'.
Or 'A thousand thousand thousands'.
I'll leave it entirely up to Enda.
trillion/thousand

Stinicker

RATM wrote: »

Its actually a good ploy by FG when describing the govt. wastage to the public. A lot of people (myself included) have no real concept of what a billion is. We do have a concept though of millions as many play for millions on lottery games frequently. So to say a thousand million rather than a billion emphasises how much money these bailouts are actually costing us.

'NAMA is going to cost the taxpayer eighty thousand million euro'.

Now that's frightening. I can easily equate that in my mind to 80,000 millionaires all losing their million euro fortune at the same time. Billion doesn't cut the mustard as well, its a term bandied about so much in this debacle that its actually become nearly cliched and meaningless.

It is also gives people a good idea of the waste in comparison to their own savings, a retired person at 65 might have 250K to 1m stashed away depending on how frugal he was in his lifetime, it also lets people calculated easily how long they'd have to work to make 1 million then multiply it by 80,000 etc.

View

iei044775 wrote: »

It drives me feckin mad everytime Fine Gael say "thousand million" instead of "billion", do they think we're stupid?

Most people have a tough time trying to really visualise having a thousand of anything, never mind a million or a billion.

If you want people who really understand those concepts, talk to your banks - after all, since they deal in big numbers, they must know what they are doing, right?

alang184

Thousand million is more confusing to me, to be honest.

"80 billion" - Makes more sense to me than "80,000 million".

FreudianSlippers

iei044775 wrote: »

It drives me feckin mad everytime Fine Gael say "thousand million" instead of "billion", do they think we're stupid?

Drives me crazy too. Don't listen to anyone who says otherwise, it's a billion.

Perhaps they think we are not American.

Welcome to 2010.

the groutch

if you've watched any of the Dail sessions over the last year or so, you'd know that it was Eamonn Gilmore that started it

loobylou

Its even worse when they say "a thousand millon"or a "billon".

starbelgrade

The worst of the lot is Bat O'Keefe, who can't even pronounce 'billion'. It is an embarrassment that someone who was appointed the Minister for Education for 2 years, could have be allowed to go on television or radio talking about the 'billons' of euro the government needed to save.

Sulmac

Bring back the milliard. :pac:

yahoo_moe

Stinicker wrote: »

it also lets people calculated easily how long they'd have to work to make 1 million then multiply it by 80,000 etc.

And if you took all the money in €5 notes and put them end to end, they'd reach from Cork to Belfast 140 times...

If someone finds it hard to conceive of 80 billion (as many of us do), I'm not sure trying to figure it out in terms of my wages is really the easiest 'in'.

FreudianSlippers

yahoo_moe wrote: »

If someone finds it hard to conceive of 80 billion (as many of us do), I'm not sure trying to figure it out in terms of my wages is really the easiest 'in'.

It's not that hard. It's 80 times more than I make per year

Raiser

RATM wrote: »

Its actually a good ploy by FG when describing the govt. wastage to the public. A lot of people (myself included) have no real concept of what a billion is. We do have a concept though of millions as many play for millions on lottery games frequently. So to say a thousand million rather than a billion emphasises how much money these bailouts are actually costing us.

'NAMA is going to cost the taxpayer eighty thousand million euro'.

Now that's frightening. I can easily equate that in my mind to 80,000 millionaires all losing their million euro fortune at the same time. Billion doesn't cut the mustard as well, its a term bandied about so much in this debacle that its actually become nearly cliched and meaningless.

Well said.