4 ms·

There's an old joke - "When you owe the bank $1M and can't pay it's your problem, but when you owe them $1G it's theirs." (Like I said it's an old joke ;) The

There's an old joke - "When you owe the bank $1M and can't pay it's your problem, but when you owe them $1G it's theirs." (Like I said it's an old joke ;) The US has a culture that likes to blame working folks when they screw up and to some extent it's good for everyone to have a culture of individual agency - you want people to feel that they have control over their fates and work toward better themselves and their families. But if you twist your society sufficiently that enough average folks sink under the barrage of predatory kleptocratic institutional behavior, then it's no longer just their problem. You might find yourself no longer living in an "advanced mixed economy/democracy" but rather something much less fun.

vmception 4y ago
I feel like you have the quote backwards and also need to update the amounts Because its still a very relevant and not old joke that is told with updated amounts
- simiones 4y ago
  The quote is the right way around: if you owe a million dollars ($1M) and can't pay, they'll foreclose your house and other assets and recover some of their money - it's entirely your problem. If you owe a billion dollars ($1G) and can't pay it back, then the bank will work with you to try to get the investment back on its feet, as they will certainly not be able to recover any significant amount of it forcefully. It becomes their problem.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    They may have thought G meant thousand. That’s not what I thought but it’s the only number that I could think of. Didn’t think it could mean a billion.
    - simiones 4y ago
      G is the SI prefix for "Giga", meaning 10^9. So, 1Gm is the SI representation of "1 giga meter = 1 billion meters", for example. It's most commonly used in computing, e.g. in 1GHz = 1 billion Hertz. You may have also seen it in power output numbers, such as saying that some power plant produces 1GWh annually (1 giga watt-hours = 1 billion watt-hours). Of course, in computing G is also sometimes used to mean 2^30. The ISO has allocated the prefixes Ki/Mi/Gi (Kibi, Mebi, Gibi) for that use, so technically my machine has 16 GiB or RAM, which is slightly more than 16GB of RAM would be.
      - pcthrowaway 4y ago
        Sure, but when people talk about money, a G is usually a thousand (not talking about financial terms, just common usage) aka "I just lost 3 G's on UST"
      - alar44 4y ago
        When's the last time you interacted with a human? $1G = ? Or $1000 at best. Giga dollars? Get out more dude.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

vmception 4y ago

I feel like you have the quote backwards and also need to update the amounts Because its still a very relevant and not old joke that is told with updated amounts

simiones 4y ago
The quote is the right way around: if you owe a million dollars ($1M) and can't pay, they'll foreclose your house and other assets and recover some of their money - it's entirely your problem. If you owe a billion dollars ($1G) and can't pay it back, then the bank will work with you to try to get the investment back on its feet, as they will certainly not be able to recover any significant amount of it forcefully. It becomes their problem.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  They may have thought G meant thousand. That’s not what I thought but it’s the only number that I could think of. Didn’t think it could mean a billion.
  - simiones 4y ago
    G is the SI prefix for "Giga", meaning 10^9. So, 1Gm is the SI representation of "1 giga meter = 1 billion meters", for example. It's most commonly used in computing, e.g. in 1GHz = 1 billion Hertz. You may have also seen it in power output numbers, such as saying that some power plant produces 1GWh annually (1 giga watt-hours = 1 billion watt-hours). Of course, in computing G is also sometimes used to mean 2^30. The ISO has allocated the prefixes Ki/Mi/Gi (Kibi, Mebi, Gibi) for that use, so technically my machine has 16 GiB or RAM, which is slightly more than 16GB of RAM would be.
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      Sure, but when people talk about money, a G is usually a thousand (not talking about financial terms, just common usage) aka "I just lost 3 G's on UST"
    - alar44 4y ago
      When's the last time you interacted with a human? $1G = ? Or $1000 at best. Giga dollars? Get out more dude.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]