$120,000.00 Could Get You…

So, what can a person expect to get for $120k?

In some areas of the country like Wyoming you could buy this house for $120k.

It seems to be quite nice but the cost of living is lower compared to most other areas of the US and you will be likely below the median average income.

And in other areas like New Jersey where the cost of living is much higher you could get something like this small but nice single family home.

Gold is currently $1,615/oz. so you could buy a little more than 74 troy ounces.

The ”other” precious metal is $28.16/oz. so you could get 4,261 troy ounces of silver if you prefer.

A fairly nice DPMS ar-15 with quality attachments like this would run you approximately $1,200 (out the door) so you could buy100 of them with $120k.

Maybe exotic sports are your thing; you could buy this 2010 Porsche 911 turbo Cabriolet:

Or this 2009 Lamborghini with $120k:

And if you insist on something insane you could get a 2010 Dodge Viper like this for $110k. You will need that remaining $10k to keep the thirsty 8.4L V-10 powerplant happy:

I looked up the projected spending for 2012 by the US Federal Government, it will be $3.8 trillion dollars.

I did some quick math in excel.

Remember the number in red when people spout that taxes need to be raised to cover the deficit. There are quite a bit of things you could buy for $120,000, but one thing you can’t get is 2 seconds of federal spending.

I want to start a new trend, instead of using the USD as a unit of measure, let’s use government spending where 1 sec=$120,000.00

Exxon Mobil recorded a 2011 profit of 342500 secs (or just under 4 days) of federal spending.

Drew Brees (who shattered Dan Marino’s passing record last year) signed a contract with the NO Saints this offseason to become the highest paid player in the NFL for 833.3 secs that will be spread out over 5 years (an average of 166.6 secs per year).

According to BHO and CONgress you are rich if you make more than 2.083 secs.

The median income of an individual in the US is 0.43 secs of federal spending.

The average net price for an incoming Harvard student (assuming grant and scholarship aid) is 0.152 secs of fed spending. If no aid or scholarship are applied it is approximately 0.35 secs.

Having costs of $120k/second is not a lack of taxes being levied, it is reckless and debilitating spending; and this is only federal spending, it does not include state and local expenditures. There aren’t enough rich victims in the world to pillage so as to fund an entity that consumes $120k/sec.