Billion mutinies

The US rescue package runs into several hundred billion dollars, and US banks regularly report losses of several billion dollars … so what’s a billion anyway? Someone has put it in perspective. A billion seconds ago, for instance, would take us back to 1959. A billion minutes ago, the same worthy informs us, Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age, and so on. A billion dollars ago, ‘was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our (US) government is spending it’.