700,000,000,000 bytes is 700 GB. That's storage on a computer that can play some serious, graphic-intensive, elaborate RPG games.

Now think of that in dollars. It's quite a lot of money the government wants to use to save financial institutions. The bailout bill was designed to put it all in the hands of one person.

If you had 700 billion dollars in your hands, what would you do with it? Buy a house? That only costs half a million for an estate mansion. Bill Gates' house cost only 97 million dollars. Brewster's Millions was a movie where Richard Pryor, in order to be heir to 300 million dollars, had to spend 30 million dollars in 30 days, responsibly, without getting a return of any sort on it.

If 700 billion dollars is set aside to rescue financial institutions, how much will be spent? Will there be extra? Will it go to other programs to alleviate the impact it will have on taxpayers? (The money's gotta come from somewhere.) And who will be allowed to parcel it out?

In the language of the bailout bill that failed this week, there was no provision for criteria for doling out the money. One person could spend 700 million dollars in any way he chose, so long as it went to help a financial institution. There was no provision for extra money left over.

Institutions cry out that those in ideal financial countries like Sweden used public monies to bail out their companies; therefore we should do the same here. What they don't say is that many have bailed themselves out. There are financial institutions in countries considered less ideal--such as in Chile (http://gata.org/node/6688)--who cinched their belts, covered their bad assets, and became solvent again on their own.

So when is help help enough? When do we know a financial institution is solvent? How do we know the person responsibile for doling out the money will, indeed, be responsible? When do we know the financial institutions can cover their own bad assets and recover more strongly on their own? And what is being done with the extra taxpayer  money left over? These are questions I am asking of my congresspeople and senators.

More in my next post.