A Billion, From Concept to Reality

The Avengers took in $1B; JPMorgan/Chase lost $2B; Mark Zuckerberg is about to raise $100B in an IPO; President Obama has set his sights on raising $1B for his re-election campaign; the Los Angeles Dodgers coming out of bankruptcy, sold for $2B. Billion is a real number, attainable in days by some. But I went to ask.com to see how long it would take to count to a billion. The answer from one point of view:

It would depend on how fast you counted.
Let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that you could count one number every second on average. (Since most numbers in that range are something like "five hundred million, seventeen thousand, two hundred and fifty," this is being very optimistic.) In that case, it would take you a billion seconds.
Dividing that by 60 (and leaving the remainder in second form), we find that it would take 16,666,666 minutes and 40 seconds. Dividing the minutes by 60, we find it would take 277,777 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds. Dividing the hours by 24, we get a new total of 11,574 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds. Finally, dividing by 365.25 (the extra quarter-day is for leap years), we end up with an approximate total of 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.
In short, if you want to count to a billion, you'd better start now.
—The Editors"Counting to a Billion — Infoplease.com." Ask the Editors. Infoplease. © 2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease.15 May. 2012 .    

There was a time when a million was a lot. Millionaires dominated the 20th century. Most of us thought $20 was a lot of money, Now it is pocket change that goes into that big jug at the top of the stairs, getting dusty with all those useless coins. A billion was a concept that was difficult to get to; a million of anything was plenty.

Hedge fund operators make a couple billion or so a year, and they think they are underpaid
Check out other billion dollar ideas at http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn167billioned

So I wonder, who will be or is the first athlete to sign a contract for that magic number? I know many make a billion in their lifetimes, but when will the first contract be signed for the pitcher or home run king; the best triple double WNBA star; the highest ranked quarterback; etc. And when that happens, what will the minimum wage be for the people of New York State...$8.50. (I wonder how many ball games those workers will get to see in person.) And all this will probably happen before I get past 1000 as I steadily count to a billion. Of course if I do make it to a billion by counting, I will be close to my aim of reaching 105 years of age. I will just count a little slower.