Source: LA Times

 Around my house, we have a term we use for the process I go through when I buy books. It’s called, “Book Math”. Now, with all due fairness, I am not good at math. It’s not because I am a woman. It’s because I think the mixture of letters and numbers in equations is unnatural. At some point in the eighth grade, Mrs. King (Pre-algebra teacher and crypt keeper) began to write things on the board which were violently ejected from my brain the moment I left the room. So, I won’t pretend I know how it all works.

Here’s how book math works:
Let’s say you’re going to spend $49.95 on a book. But, you find that book used online for $12.95. That leaves, oh, I don’t know, almost 40 dollars left over that I was going to spend. So, I can buy at least four more books that cost around $10. Shipping doesn’t really count. Of course, I know this isn't right. But, my husband has the patience of a saint. 

I think book math has been applied to the bailout package. Lawmakers have finally come over to my anti-math agenda.

From CNN: “The bailout plan has new provisions, including an increase in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cap from $100,000 to $250,000. It makes $250 billion immediately available to purchase bank assets, leaving $100 billion at the president's discretion and $350 billion subject to congressional review.”

$100 BILLION dollars at the President’s discretion.

$100 BILLION.  With a "B". BILLION.

What IS that?

That’s 100 more days of war.  
Source: PJ in Amsterdam

That’s $333.33 for every man, woman and child in the US.
That’s 1/3 of the entire health and human services budget for the USA. That’s 160,000,000 pairs of Christian Louboutin Mary Janes.  

That’s 50,000,000 semesters of college tuition.
 

That’s 3,636,363 signed limited edition copies of “Howls & Whispers” by Ted Hughes, (even though there are only 10 of them in the world). 

Okay. Maybe that one was a cheap ploy to post a picture of Ted.

Most importantly, it could pay my mortgage off 1,000,000 times.  

Wait.

If that can pay MY mortgage off, what could JUST THE MONEY THEY ARE GIVING THE PRESIDENT do for the people whose homes are being foreclosed upon?

$250 billion dollars available immediately to “purchase bank assets”? What does that even MEAN?

 If the bank had assets, why are we bailing them out? And what do I get in return? A receipt?

The warm fuzzy feeling that rich white guys will get to keep their house in the Hamptons?

I am also SO relieved that my accountant isn’t going to have to break my available banked cash into $100,000 accounts. Now I can keep a cool quarter million all in one place. That’s very helpful.

Sounds like book math to me.