Show Me My Money

Andy Rooney Takes Stock And Has His Own Financial Advice

(CBS)  The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

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Considering how hard I work to make what I have, I don't understand why I'm so dumb with money. The single dumbest thing I do is invest in the stock market. It's okay if you know what you're doing, but I have no idea what I'm doing and I suspect I'm typical of a lot of Americans, too. We know how to make money but we don't know what to do once we get it.

I have stock in two companies that I've never even heard of. I don't even know what they make. Probably all they make is money. Why in the world do I risk my hard earned (OK, soft earned) money investing in something about which I know so little? Big money is confusing of course - bailouts, short selling, derivatives, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.

Recently, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for $50 billion. What's that all about? Sell itself? Who gets the $50 billion?

And here's another headline: "U.S. To Lend AIG $85 Billion." Well, the U.S. is us, you and me, but I don't think many of us know what AIG is. I looked it up and it means "American International Group." What are we doing lending $85 billion of our money to some company most of us never even heard of?

I don't even really know what $85 billion is, let alone this $700 billion bailout. If I had a billion dollars, could I pave my driveway, paint the bedroom over the garage and replace the worn carpet on the back stairway?

How high would a billion dollars be if you stacked it up in a pile of one dollar bills? That's the kind of information I'd need to understand what $700 billion is.

There's probably a good case to be made for someone like me keeping his money under the mattress. We turn the mattress every couple of months, so at least I'd get to look at it once in a while.

Maybe I'll go to the bank tomorrow if it's still there and ask them to show me my money, just to make sure they still have it.

Right now all I have in my pocket is $17 and change. Does that qualify me for a bailout?

Andy, I''ve enjoyed your commentary for years. Sunday evening, however, I was severely taken aback by what you had to say. Your commentary was irresponsible. I appreciate that you speak in your own words, and you tend to speak for all of us. This financial crisis is truly confusing, I can appreciate that. As a commentator, you had the opportunity to speak for us, thank you - but you are so widely heard - you had a huge opportunity to educate us as well. At least to point us in the direction of where to find more information, what to look for, and bottom line - we, the public, have the opportunity to look and see where we have not been involved in the politics and decisions of our own senators and congressmen and congresswomen. Is this perhaps a wake-up call for us, as citizens, to pay attention to what goes on in Washington? Instead of playing dumb, and saying that we don''t know what''s going on, we need to wise-up, get educated and get involved - doing that, and recommending that we all do that is the opportunity that you missed.

[mrlobato-2009]

Mr. Rooney,

The 6th grade math class at Friends Academy (Dartmouth, MA) would like to share that a stack of 700,000,000,000 one dollar bills would be approximately 47,000 miles tall.

Laid end to end, 700,000,000,000 one dollar bills would go to the moon and back over 140 times!

-D.Lobato

[mrlobato-2009]

Mr. Rooney,

The 6th grade math class at Friends Academy (Dartmouth, MA) would like to share that a stack of 700,000,000,000 one dollar bills would be approximately 47,000 miles tall.

Laid end to end, 700,000,000,000 one dollar bills would go to the moon and back over 140 times!

-D.Lobato

[lessbread]

Here are three more ways of making sense of what $1 billion looks like. 1 billion 1 dollar bills neatly stacked could cover an entire football field to a depth of just over 10 and a half inches. 1 billion 1 dollar bills neatly stacked could cover the entire infield square of a regulation baseball diamond to a depth of just over 59 inches or nearly 5 feet. 1 billion 1 dollar bills neatly stacked could cover an entire NBA basketball court to a depth of just under 102 inches or nearly 8 feet 6 inches. That''s more than enough to drown the tallest players in the NBA.

[shanev137]

The federal government insures my money in my bank, as does yours. And you know that.


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The only horrifying thing on this thread is your post and the fallacy and outright lie that you''re pandering on here about the FDIC.

The fact is that there isn''t enough cash in our system to show every single person their money at the same time or bail every single account out at the 100K level.

It''s been like that since our country was taken off the gold standard in 1971 by Richard Nixon.

Wake up already.

[bknack]

$ 700,000,000,000.00 would circle the equator just under two (2) times stacked. Not end to end, mind you. I''m talking about stacking the bills (each bill is 0.0043 inches thick so the stack would be just over 47,506.31 miles high) and then wrapping them around the Earth. The Earth has a circumference of 24,849.82 miles.

[rickyromance]

Andy before you go to the bank tomorrow to "see your money" you should watch "It''s A Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed (1946)

[deanl1957]

interesting info - to answer Mr. Rooney''s question. a bill is about .0035 inches thick. $7,000,000 is about 2041667 feet or 387 miles high. that''s a stack of money.

[uofadrummer]

-If 232 brand new one hundred dollar bills are in every inch,

-that is 2784 bills in a foot,

-or 278,400 dollars in a foot,

-or 1,469,952,000 dollars in a mile.

-700 billion dollars =
476.206 miles

Thanks!

Hank Miller

p.s. go hogs!

[d-fenestrate]

I am horrified by your commentary and find it downright irresponsible -- a disservice to the public on the highest order. Yes, there is a lot of confusing stuff going on right now, but do you consider the consequences of suggesting to your viewership to make a run on the banks?? To pull out their money and stick it in their mattresses?? The federal government insures my money in my bank, as does yours. And you know that. You ever hear of the Great Depression? And how public fear -- of the sort you just put out there -- compounded the problem into a national disaster??

Now, increasing the amount of insurance another 150k so that, while that''s guaranteed to me, the banks can run wild and risk my money in whatever new scheme they can find... that would be a worthy public debate. Mark-to-Market and unregulated collateralized debt obligations more of them.... but to play this dummy "I don''t get it, therefore I shouldn''t trust it" *** is scary and insulting to your viewership. Patently unpatriotic.

[deanl1957]

interesting info - to answer Mr. Rooney''s question. a bill is about .0035 inches thick. $7,000,000 is about 2041667 feet or 387 miles high. that''s a stack of money.

Tell Andy that a stack of one billion one dollar bills will be 50 miles high.