Some Interesting Facts About Time, Money, and Government Spending
“Time is more valuable than money, you can get more money, but you can’t get more time” — Jim Rohn
It is common to use quantitative terms like millions, billions, and trillions to describe money. These descriptions often roll off the tongue with little thought to the significance of the amount of money that they describe. Not long ago, the use of the terms billions and trillions were rarely heard. The compounding effect of inflation and economic growth has meant the descriptors for large sums of money are used more frequently to describe government budgets. We even use the terms billions and trillions to describe budget deficits. The budget deficit is the excess of expenditure over and above income.
In July 2021, the US budget deficit for the month was $301 billion. So far, for the year 2021, the cumulative US budget deficit is $2.5 trillion.
The South African budget deficit for the 2021/22 is expected to be R500 billion. That means the government is spending R1.37 billion per day, more than its income.
It is helpful to reframe these large sums of money using the measure of time. The average human life in the developed world is approximately 80 years. That is about 2,5 billion seconds. But that has little meaning if it is not compared to something else to get some perspective.
Here is another way to look at large numbers in the context of time:
A million seconds is about 11.5 days. A billion seconds a little more than 11,500 days or 31.7 years. That is quite a leap from a million to a billion. 11.5 days to 31.7 years. A trillion seconds is 31,709 years.
In 2008, under the guidance of Thabo Mbeki and Trevor Manual, the South African government managed a budget surplus. Since then, budget deficits have exploded, and South Africa has gone from 23% debt to GDP to 83%.
Under the “guidance” of Jacob Zuma, South Africa embraced the essence of Jim Rohn’s words. Getting more money has not been a problem. Expanding the debt burden through borrowing has produced plentiful bulging Gucci bags of cash. As Margret Thatcher said, “the problem with spending other people’s money is that eventually, it runs out”. In the context of the ANC, as the money runs out, so does their time. However, I suspect Jabob Zuma might have bought himself plenty of time.
Justin Spencer-Young
