Russia has fined Google $2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or more money than actually exists on Earth, all because it's upset about some YouTube channels

What is the most shocking invoice you've received in the mail? I'm still recovering financially from the winter of 2022 when an electric heater dalliance landed me a fat PS300 bill on my doorstep. Octopus Energy sent me a bill that was presumably meant for Jeff Bezos, even though I write about videogames.

It could be worse. I could have been the guy at Google that had to open the $2.5 decillion Russian government fine (via The Moscow Times). It's decimillion. That's a one followed 33 zeros. That means Russia wants Google to pay it $2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The number in rubles, R2 undecillion is even more absurd.

For reference, the World Bank estimates the sum total of world GDP last year at $105,000,000,000,000--or one hundred and five trillion dollars. MarketWatch generously estimated the sum of all the money on Earth in 2017 (not so long ago that the numbers would be drastically different today), including cryptocurrencies, gold above ground, and funds invested into financial products.

If you remove all the stuff that's not money, such as all the gold, crypto, and financial nonsense, that amount drops to a meager $90.4 trillion. No matter which estimate you use, $2.5 decillion will be many orders of magnitude larger. Almost incomprehensibly big. And so, Russia wants Google to pay more money than there is on Earth.

Google generated $307 billion of revenue last year. If it tried paying the fine with all of that money, something it could not do even if they wanted to, it would be like trying to pay your mortgage using a dime two cents.

You may be wondering how Google ended up owing this ungodly amount to the Russian government. RBC says that YouTube blocked some Russian channels. Google was sued in 2020 by pro-Kremlin channels Tsargrad, RIA FAN, and Patriot Media Group (formerly headed up by Yevgeny Prigozhin - a staunch Putin ally who attempted to launch a failed coup last year, and then exploded mid-air). The punishment? The punishment?

The fines grew exponentially, like grains of wheat on the chessboard. It was impossible for any entity or even all entities on Earth to pay off the total. Google was fortunate in that I don't think it ever intended to do so. The company stopped advertising in Russia in 2022 after it invaded Ukraine, and its Russian subsidiary was declared bankrupt in 2013. If Google wants to do business with Russia again, I suspect that the corporation and Russian government will need to come to an agreement to bury the fine. Either Sundar Pichai has to start looking under the couch cushions, or he needs to find a way to get around the fine.

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