Greg Mankiw, economics professor at Harvard University, puts these numbers in perspective. This has been done before, but it never ceases to amaze me.
...imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year--approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.HT Liz Mair