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Gay Street can hold $40 billion from the mid-point of Middle Street to the midpoint of Porter Street, one block long. Now we have a good benchmark. Even Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, could grasp this. He was married at the The Inn at Little Washington a number of years ago.
This is a useful benchmark. Now when I read a big number, I can use Gay Street to gauge how much money is involved. Recently, Bill Gates’ personal fortune was said to be almost $41 billion. He’s worth a streetfull. Hewlett-Packard’s printer business is $20 billion a year— half a streetfull.
Gay Street also provides a way to make comparisons. Global music sales last year were $32 billion, somewhere between Hewlett-Packard’s printer business and Bill Gates’ fortune. Or Wall Street bonuses in 2002 were $8 billion-^-jUst the bonuses, not the paychecks. Spam email costs businesses $10 billion a year. Both are about one-fourth of Bill Gates’ fortune.
How about this? When Enron collapsed in December 2002, investors and employees lost over $60 billion. And in March 2003, WorldCom wrote off $80 billion in assets because the value of the companies they had acquired dropped and things like their Fiber-optic network lost value. $60 bilJENKINS
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