(Screen grab/ NBC)
On the September 29th episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Russell Crowe revealed his bailout plan for America's economic crisis.
JAY LENO: Now we were talking back stage, and you told me you had a bailout plan. You've been watching us here in America?
RUSSELL CROWE: I have been intently watching the political process, Jay. Fascinated with it... It's a very exciting time for America.
LENO: Americans love to hear what actors have to say on political issues.
CROWE: I know. I know. That's why I make so many political comments.
LENO: That's right. That's right.
CROWE: I'll just try this out on you guys. And look, don't get too excited about it or anything 'cause you can't vote for me, no matter how much you want to...
Um, so, here's the thing: They're looking for $700 billion, right? Which is a good chunk of change, but have you noticed whenever you go to a bank, or whenever you talk to a government department about what you need, they'll never actually give you all of what you need? So, I don't think we should do that for a start.
But I was thinking if they wanna stimulate the economy, get people spending, let people look after their, their mortgage, I think you take the first 300 million Americans, if that's the population at this point in time, give everyone a million bucks.
(Applause)
LENO: That would stimulate the...
CROWE: Don't use that now...
LENO: Oh yeah, that'll work. What are the taxes on that? But OK, that would work, yeah...
So instead of a $700 billion bailout, Crowe proposes a $300 TRILLION bailout. Leno was receptive to his idea.
Yeah, that would work.
Of course, this was a light-hearted exchange, but I think Crowe was serious to a certain extent.
He didn't do the math. And even if he had, where does he think the government gets the money?
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In the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe played John Forbes Nash, a mathematical genius and Nobel Laureate in Economics.
10 comments:
bingo, you hit the event of the day right on the head. I couldn't believe it when I saw it on the TV also.... a good reason why we don't want to hear from actors. Good at acting smart until you ask for your change at Burger World and they have to wait for the computer to tell them 23 cents...
In my kids elementary school they are saying that they don't really have to learn their multiplication tables any more. I thought they were kidding.
That the crowd cheered at his bad math was equally disturbing and I agree that while his agents will spin this as a joke I think he thinks 300 million x $1 million dollars is less than the bailout amount. IMHO...
Let me tell you how I'm going to spin it... my kid will watch the youtube version and do the math and realize an actor is still an actor and unless you do the math yourself people will be asking you if you got two tens for a five! good catch blogger!
It seemed to me like Crowe was serious.
Leno mentioned taxes as an issue with Crowe's bailout plan, but he didn't make a joke about the math being way off.
I'm sure the spin will be that it was all a joke.
It's possible, but if that's the case, the audience didn't get it at all.
I guess a $1 million handout is too appealing.
It *was* a joke! Lighten up! I thought I was the one who is always too serious!
He was being facetious about confronting imminent extreme poverty by making people instant millionaires.
If you read it right... a million would not be what people would ask for.
... intimating GREED - which is the purported cause of the bailout problem!
Hmm... you guys do realise that it's not that long ago that the US convinced the ISO to adopt their definition of "billion", right?
For the rest of us, "billion" used to mean a million million. Not sure why we had to degrade it a paltry thousand million.
Up until recently, in other countries such as Australia a billion was a million million. So in Russell's head 300 billion is 300,000,000,000,000 which when divided by 300 million leaves 1 million. So Russell's math was actually spot on. Not so much his cultural awareness.
Define "recently."
In any event, the $700 billion bailout plan for America was not a $700 trillion bailout plan.
When talking about the American economy it's odd to use a definition of a number that doesn't apply to the situation.
It doesn't matter.
In my post, I said it was a light-hearted exchange. In a comment, I said it's possible it was all a joke, though the audience didn't get it.
I just noticed the math being off and thought it was funny. That's all.
Yes, lighten up.
We used it at school 20 year ago. Russell was at school a lot earlier than that.
Just seems funny that people are knocking Russell for not knowing the US had a different definition, but are doing the same thing themselves by not knowing he had a different definition.
Not knocking Mary, though - it's a funny thing to point out. It's jsut a bit disturbing how many equally ignorant commentors and journalists have taken it a bit far.
Guys, im a 31 year old Aussie and 20 years ago i was taught that a thousand X a million = a billion. Im pretty sure that Rusty was taught the same thing. He got the maths wrong...
Good grief - it WAS a joke ! And the math doesn't matter at all when someone is making an obviously facetious comment.
And Crowe never comments on politics (except once when asked years ago on the Chris Mathews show); he's said before that actors have no business giving their opinions on anything other than acting.
Just turning and addressing the audience was an indication he was letting them in on a joke. When he's serious he speaks directly to the host. It's called body language .
In every single nation on this Earth, except the US, which still lives in a "dinosaur-like, pre-metric world view" a billion is a thousand milliards, a milliard is a thousand millions, hence a billion is a million millions. Now I know that US is different, for instance my speedometer here looks like something from another planet, and when I am driving in 75, which in Europe is pathetically slow, I'm actually driving way above the highest speed limit allowed here, and in fact I'm moving quite fast. But for Russell to not know this, might seem as weird, but fact is that America is weird when it comes to metrics, and America is the weird ones here...
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