Hey folks,

I was being interviewed on a radio show recently (listen to the podcast here) and just before I went on air I was listening to their news segment. One of the stories was about a bailout that the South African government is handing down to South African Airways.

This most recent “donation” is more than R10bn (±$680m).

So before I was brought on air I did some quick calculations that looked as follows:

SAA will receive R10bn. R10 000 000 000.

Let's put it into clearer context...

The Slow Fund that I launched is giving away R1000 every day to start a side hustle.

If I increased that to R10 000 every day I could fund 1 000 000 businesses! ONE MILLION!

I could fund one business every day with R10 000 for 2739 years with the SAA Bailout. It's disgusting and heartbreaking.

2739 years!

Let’s go back in time to put 2739 years into perspective.

2739 years ago it was the year 718 BCE. Some highlights from 8th century BCE:

• 753 BC: Rome founded by Romulus

• Greece is on a colonization drive

• The first historic solar eclipse is recorded in China

• 747 BC: Nabonassar becomes king of Babylon (yes, Babylon, that’s how far back we are)

It was a long time ago.

I want to put these insanely big numbers that we think we understand into further perspective so let’s do some fun calculations:

• One million seconds is about 11 and a half days.

• One billion seconds is about 32 years.

• One million pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower 1.6km high.

• One billion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower almost 1 400km high.

• A premier league football match is 90 minutes long.

  • You could play ±11 000 football matches in one million minutes.

  • You could play ±11 000 000 football matches in one billion minutes.

• If we gave every person in South Africa an equal share of R1 000 000 they would receive a one-time payment of R0.017.

  If we gave every person in South Africa an equal share of the R10bn SAA bailout, each person would receive a one-time payment of R170.

• If you would like more visualization of $1bn, click here.

We are not programmed to understand the context of these insane numbers. We normalise them and act as if owning $1bn is normal, possible and expected in the world. It’s not. It’s a staggering amount of money. Perhaps it’s because the words “million”, “billion” and “trillion” are so similar that our brains think that they’re close to one another. They are not as you’ve seen above.

Maybe we should rename the word billion to “fucktonillion” and trillion to “holyshitrillion” so we understand the vast gap between the three figures.

We cannot fall prey to normalising what we read and see in the media. Hearing about Elon Musk’s wealth of $185bn makes us believe that this is normal. It is not. Elon Musk could give everyone (EVERYONE!) in the world $10 and still have $107bn left.

I honestly don’t know what the point of this particular newsletter is but I have been so overwhelmed with anger about the SAA bailout that I had to put these numbers into perspective for myself.

It’s important that we question what we hear and understand about the world around us. Don’t just accept that companies receive bailouts without putting the bailouts into perspective. Don’t accept facts that you don’t understand fully and can’t verify.

Force your brain to make sense of the world around you.

That’s it. That’s all I have this week.