RAY: Hi. We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair and duh, the answer to last week's puzzler. OK, you ready?
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: When I was a kid, if you really made it, you became a millionaire. And there were certainly plenty of millionaires around. You know, guys to envy. You'd look up to guys like Henry Ford and Rockefeller, Getty, et cetera.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: But today, being a millionaire is not a big deal at all. Now we have billionaires, guys like Warren Buffet and Jimmy Buffet and Bill Gates, just to name a few.
TOM: Just to name two.
RAY: And I'm sure we now have maybe hundreds of billionaires in this country, not counting the sleaze balls from Enron.
TOM: You mean the alleged sleaze balls from Enron.
RAY: Oh, I'm sorry. I guess, yes.
TOM: And what the hell? Let's get in --
RAY: And Arthur Andersen. Let's not leave them out.
TOM: Do I have to lecture you on libel law again, by the way?
RAY: Anyway, it turns out that there is not one billionaire in England. Not one, in all of England. And the question is why not?
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: Now, I'm sure a lot of people thought it had to do with their income tax structure, that they --
TOM: Ah. I'm sure a lot of people thought that --
RAY: Yeah.
TOM: -- erroneously.
RAY: And the pound is worth more than the dollar, so it's hard to amass a million times.
TOM: So, it wouldn't be a billion dollars. It would be a billion pounds.
RAY: And that would be harder.
TOM: That's a couple of billion dollars almost.
RAY: Right, but that isn't the answer either.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: The answer is the definition. What we call a billion in this country is a thousand times a million.
TOM: Yes.
RAY: OK? But a billion in England is a million times a million. So, to be a billionaire in England, you would have to have a million million pounds, or you'd have to have the equivalent of a trillion, what we call a trillion dollars or a trillion pounds. And nobody in England has that kind of money, not even the Queen Mom.
TOM: Wow.
RAY: And we got a thousand million answers to this.
TOM: Did we really?
RAY: I guess everyone knew it but you know.
TOM: Yeah, well.
RAY: You've got to have an easy one once in awhile.
TOM: You do.
RAY: So who's our winner anyway?
TOM: The winner this week is the Reverend --
RAY: Wow.
TOM: The Reverend James D. Richardson. What a nice name. From El Paso, Texas. And for having his answer selected at random from the compost pile of correct answers that we got, Reverend Richardson will get a $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. And with that gift certificate, the good Reverend can get our music CD, "Car Talk Car Tunes: The Car Talk Compendium of Disrespectful Car Songs," which has proven to be an excellent three-stage podium leveler.
RAY: I've got a feeling the choir's going to be singing those songs for a couple of weeks.
TOM: I mean, just think. You're standing up there and you're delivering your sermon for the day and the podium starts to wobble. You pull out this thing, and you can either put the whole jewel case under it or you can just put the CD under it.
RAY: Right.
TOM: Or you can put the CD on top of the case. So you've got three different levels of correction?? using this.
RAY: Geez.
TOM: Wow. What a deal.
RAY: Anyway, we'll have a br???, I, we'll have a brand new puzzler coming up in the third half of the show. I have not yet decided what the puzzler will be, so I can't even give a description. It's just so agonizing coming up with a --
TOM: Will it involve a dimly lit hut?
RAY: I'm afraid, I'm afraid not. I'm afraid not but it might be --
TOM: Oh, it doesn't get any better than that, Ray.
RAY: It might be good. You, you, you never can tell so hang around. And right now, anyway, if you have a question about your car, you can give us a call. The number is 888 CAR-TALK. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
