Congress Just Approved A $2 Trillion Rescue Bill So Here's A Quick Refresher On Exactly How Much Money That Is

WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate leaders of both major political parties announced agreement early Wednesday on unprecedented emergency legislation to rush sweeping aid to businesses, workers and a health care system slammed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The urgently needed $2 trillion pandemic response measure is the largest economic rescue measure in history and is intended as a weekslong or monthslong patch for an economy spiraling into recession and a nation facing a potentially ghastly toll.

I feel like Charlie Brown listening to an adult any time we start talking about stimulus packages and the American economy. Just a bunch of mumbo jumbo about The Fed and interest rates and indexes and 50-year bond yields and all that fancy bullshit. You gotta be a real Johnny Pocket Protector to play in this space and fortunately I know my limits: we're not talking macroeconomic monetary policy. In fact I don't even know what that means. 

What I do know is that the following context made me say Holy Fucking Shit a couple times out loud. Call me old fashioned. 

The rescue package would be larger than the 2008 bank bailout and 2009 recovery act combined.

If you've seen the Big Short, then you understand the significance of that comparison. If you haven't then I recommend you get dialed-in and prepare for the capital infusion to your portfolio because boy oh boy is it coming:

The package would give one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child directly to the public.

$1,200 big ones when you can't lose it on the NCAA tournament is actually a nice gesture. Feels even better knowing it's a kickback from Congress. You can 100% buy my vote and this is exactly how you do it. Cold hard cash. 

But exactly how much is two trillion dollars? 

It's 10% of our GDP. 20 Jeff Bezos's. 8-years of Apple top-line revenue. 20,000 Dave Portnoys and 269 million Barstool Carls. 

In other words, it's a lot of fucking money. So much so that I wanted to see in real life what Two trillion dollars looked like stacked up but I could only find videos for One trillion dollars. So here's two of those videos to scale. 

So basically a Caesar's palace worth of square footage except entirely made of cash. Enough to buy most land area of Central America and still have enough left over to bailout the banks in 2008. Just an unreal flex from the United States government. Remember this shit next time your Aunt Sharon threatens a move to Canada. 

Hit the music.