What can $700 billion buy?

FIRST of all, no matter how hard I wrap my head around this figure for the U.S. government's grand bailout party, I dunno how they're gonna pay for it unless they hock themselves further in debt. This is overspending to the gazillionaireth proportion and who is gonna pay for all that? The American public. Why do we care? If Americans have less money onhand, they buy less of our goods.

Why can't the U.S. goverment just pay off the mortgages of those who can't pay, or at least, stretch out the borrowers' payments or just help them get on their feet, instead of pandering to Wall Street and (U.S. Treasury Secretary) Paulson and George Bush's rich buds?

Anyway, here's a piece in Vanity Fair on what $700 billion can buy: prevent 200 million foreclosures, pay the U.S. debt to Japan, pay for social security for the next 40 years, remake Titanic 3500 times (ick!), buy 10 iPhones for every American, or how'd you like 10 large hadron colliders? Read the rest at VF Politics and Power