What Two Billion Dollars Will Buy

Los Angeles Dodgers fans and all baseball fans are sighing with relief that the team has new owners (subject to league approval which is still pending). No one will be sad to see the Frank McCourt era come to an end. Unfortunately, that dandy dandelion will still end up smelling like a rose as Guggenheim Baseball Management LLC won the ownership sweepstakes with a whopping sale price of two billion dollars. The words do not emphasize this price enough. How about if it is typed out this way: $2,000,000,000? Holy smokes.

The price tag has the same jaw-dropping effect as that HGTV show, "Million Dollar Rooms." On the one hand, such extravagant spending seems like an elitist and selfish thing when so many people in this country have to choose between gas in their vehicles and food on the table. But on the other hand, these ultra-rich folks put people to work and buy from businesses that benefit from such extravagance. Even so, the amount of money this represents is beyond comprehension. Two. Billion. Dollars.

To aid in an understanding of how much money this is, let's do a little exercise called, "What two billion dollars could buy." In other words, if you had $2 billion to spend, you could buy:

• 31,661 Cadillac Escalades
• 63,201 Chevy Volts
• 2,072,539 full 250 gallon tanks of fuel oil or 522,193,211 gallons of fuel oil. That would keep you warm for a while.
• 133,333 71-inch plasma televisions at $15,000 a pop.
• 57,133 wind turbine systems. That might be enough to take a tenth of the Maine households off the electric grid.
• 500 million loaves of bread.
• 33,333 employees at $60,000 a year.
• 25,000 average priced homes in Aroostook County, Maine.
• 25,000,000 pairs of designer blue jeans.
• 123,992,560 copies of Dirk Heyhurst's latest book.
• 113,122 premium-seat Yankee season tickets.
• 1,666,667 top of the line refrigerators.
• 33,333,333 dozen roses - red.
• 501,253,132 songs on iTunes.
• 714,541 John Deere D170 riding mowers.
• 80 seasons of Albert Pujols at $25 million a season.
• 3 Houston Astros teams.
• 4,273,504 Acer 17.3 inch laptop computers at Walmart.
• 41,666,667 cases of paper at Staples.
• 1 southern California-based baseball team.

That, friends, is a lot of clams.