Sunday, May 9, 2010

"A Billion here and a Billion There, and pretty soon you're talking about REAL MONEY!

A Billion Dollars.  It seems that lately we don't even speak in terms of Billions anymore; it's Trillions.  I thought it would be intriguing and sobering to look into what a Billion dollars would purchase in goods and services in the Retail Sector.  That should put some serious perspective on things, next time you hear government officials tossing around the "B" word.  


Here is a random sampling of what ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS WOULD PURCHASE.  (Naturally, these figures are huge generalizations based on certain types of bags, fixtures, shopping carts, supplies, or labor types, but accurate enough to make you stop and think!):
  • Ten million (10,000,000) shopping carts (buggies) for retail or grocery stores.
  • Forty Two million case of plastic shopping bags.
  • Thirty Five million cases of plastic garment hangers.
  • Forty Thousand Full Time Employees, working 40 hours a week at $12 an hour for a year.
  • Enough Store Fixtures (Floor Racking) to fully fixture 5,000 big box Off-Price stores
  • Round Trip Airfare San Francisco to Dallas 3,875,000 times! (think of the airline points!) 
  • Thirty Eight million cases of toilet tissue.
I could go on and on because the imagination soars when you start putting a calculator to it.  

I'd be interested to know what ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS WOULD PURCHASE in OTHER industries!  If you are reading this and would like to provide me with some feedback from other industries like Medical, Hospitality, Property Management, etc... I would love to hear from you!

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