Overnight the Federal Reserve and the world’s other major central banks collectively pumped 180 billion US bucks ($AUS 224 billion dollars) into the ailing global markets.

That amount of money is so mindboggling that we at Crikey decided to try to put all those zeros into context.

So, did you know that $180 Billion US ($180,000,000,000) is

  • Enough to buy 61,000,000,000 Happy Meals!
  • 3673 times the minimum value of free, privately sponsored trips taken since 2000 by members of (US) Congress and their staff;
  • 494 times the amount the US military spent since 1994 to replace service members discharged for being gay;
  • 720,000 times the amount that Israel paid to relocate each settler from the Gaza Strip;
  • 150 times the cost of tax payer money spent on the Apollo 13 mission;
  • 124,930 times the cost of the world’s most expensive commercial car, the Bugatti Veyron;
  • 105,882 times the amount that Egypt owes the US in unpaid parking tickets;
  • 66 times the cost of US spending on missile defence each year since President Reagan’s 1983 “Star Wars” speech;
  • 150 times the amount spent between October 1st 1992 and October 1st 1995 on US Nuclear testing activities in the US;
  • 448 times the cost of Eureka Tower construction in Melbourne;
  • Over half of the total output value of China’s machinery industry in 2003.