Apparently, the agents of the market CAN outspend the government...

[K. Darien Freeheart]

A man in New Hampshire was charged 23 quadrillion dollars for a pack of cigarettes. No, a new tobacco tax has NOT gone into effect.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/offbeat/view/20090715nh_man_charged_23_quadrillion_dollars_for_smokes/srvc=home&position=recent

Computer glitch charged 23 quadrillion dollars to his credit card when he purchased a pack of smokes.

[Hroarkpresents]

the really sad part is, that's only 2,000 times more the national debt. 

[J’raxis 270145]

Recently several Visa card holders were, um, overcharged for certain purchases, to the tune of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 on a single charge. The company says it was due to a programming error, and that the problem has been corrected. What is interesting is that the amount charged actually reveals the type of programming error that caused the problem. 23,148,855,308,184,500.00 * 100 (I'm guessing this is how the number is actually stored) is 2314885530818450000. Convert 2314885530818450000 to hexadecimal, and you end up with 20 20 20 20 20 20 12 50. Most C/C++ programmers see the error now ... hex 20 is a space. So spaces were stuffed into a field where binary zero should have been.

Source.

[peaceful_porc]

And some of my old friends wonder why I don't have a bank account or debit/credit cards...