The US government is on track for running up over $1.2 trillion in debt this year alone, and I have been wondering - what can you buy for that much money ?

Here is a video for spending the 2010 deficit
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I heard an estimate that to save the Salton Sea in southern California -- which is sometimes the source of this ugly, nasty, garbage+sulphur+dead fish smell throughout the area -- you'd need something like $9 billion or more. So, given money equivalent the federal deficit, you could potentially remove this ugly, nasty, garbage+sulphur+dead fish smell in southern California. Maybe.

You could probably solve the drug problem in Mexico by using that money to create jobs. You could buy several water treatment plants for poorer countries. I could not work for ... ever and take a trip to new country every month for life. You could pay off people's mortgages and prevented the mortgage crisis a couple of years early. I could finally invest in a VR arcade room and buy the new Google goggles.

...take a trip to new country every month for life...[/quote]Well, for the next seventeen years or so, at least. [/smartypants]

...take a trip to new country every month for life...

Well, for the next seventeen years or so, at least. [/smartypants]
[/quote]

I'd love to see what kind of vacations you take - $5.7 million a vacation that works out to be.

With $1.2 trillion, I'd buy about 100 square miles of land, and than declare it an independent nation, hiring my own army to "defend" it's borders.

Knowing me, it would probably fall out of my pocket and I'd lose it in my couch cushions.

[quote name='Heath' timestamp='1351378024' post='4994565']

...take a trip to new country every month for life...

Well, for the next seventeen years or so, at least. [/smartypants]
[/quote]

I'd love to see what kind of vacations you take - $5.7 million a vacation that works out to be.[/quote]As awesome as spending 5 or 6 million dollars on a vacation each month might sound, there are 206 sovereign states in the world, and 12 months in a year. So to visit a new country each month works out to 17 years and some change, assuming you have never visited another country besides your own. So, would you spend $5.8 million a month to visit every country in the world for 17 years if given the chance?

I doubt I would even spend $.8 million a month. Maybe $250K though

$250K a month on vacations works out to be 4,800,000 months.

You could probably solve the drug problem in Mexico by using that money to create jobs.

A "high paying" job down there pays $2 USD an hour. If you payed your workers $10 an hour, you could hire 60,000,000 folks for 1 year. If you wanted to hire the entire population of Mexico for a year, you'd have to pay every one $5 an hour .

You could probably solve the drug problem in Mexico by using that money to create jobs.

That's assuming the drug problem in Mexico is a problem in Mexico. A better fix for the drug problem in Mexico is to "donate" to enough US politicians to end the "war on drugs". That could have a dramatic effect on the lives of the poor in both Mexico and the USA.