Sunday, April 20, 2008

Episode 504

Reuters published an article some time ago on what, and how much you could buy with the write-downs UBS incurred (up till Apr 1, 2008) - a whopping 37 billion United States Dollars. That's 37 followed by 9 zeros. In UNITED STATES DOLLARS!

And that's equivalent to 51 billion Singapore dollars. If that still doesn't astonish you, I'd like to propose a local version of what you could buy/do in Singapore with the amount that UBS has written off:

(1) If there are four family members, and if each of you eats a packet of char kway teow for every meal, you'll be able to eat the same damn thing for next 11 million years. Char Kway Teow mai hum, anyone?

(2) If you line 51 billion dollars worth of ten-dollar notes end-to-end, it would have covered the entire distance of the PIE (about 42km). For 86.7 times.

(3) You could have taken 17 billion MeRT trips. That is, if you ride the subway 2 times a day, you'll need to do that for the next 46 million years.

(4) You can fly on Singapore Airlines (First Class) to New York for 3.2 million times. That's approximately one first class ticket for every Singapore citizen to New York. I'm sure mum and dad would be extremely pleased.

(5) You can build 85 Esplanades. The whole bloody downtown will be littered with Durians.

(6) Sunday Brunch at the Ritz-Carlton for 425 million times. Unfortunately Sundays only happen once a week so you'll have to live for another 8.1 million years to see your brunch offer run out.

(7) If there were 60,000 runners for last year's Singapore Marathon and if everyone received a goodie bag, the bag would have been worth SGD850,000.00. Who gives a damn about the measly SGD35,000 cash prize?

(8) Lift not going to your floor at your apartment? No problem, for 15,000 dollars from every family, the entire building will have 18,888 lifts.

(9) If every couple receives an average of SGD4,500 cash for every kid born, 11 million babies will have to be born. Toys R' Us and McDonald's will collapse after being overrun by 11 million kids.

(10) Oh, if all else fails, we can always use the 51 billion for our ministers' annual salaries. That should be enough for... approximately 4 ministers.