Phaneron

Question: When Dr. Evil demands $100 billion in 1969, the President laughs it off and says that amount of money doesn't even exist. However, the U.S. budget in 1969 was $186 billion. Does the President just mean that much physical money doesn't exist? If so, how did the government pay for things back then? Did they just reallocate funds?

Phaneron

Answer: I think it was just exaggerated as a gag. But he was asking for a huge amount of money that probably couldn't get pooled together. He was asking for almost 10% of the U.S. GDP and more than 50% of the budget. So it would have been like asking for $1 trillion in 1999 (or over $2 trillion today).

Bishop73

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