The Good Thing About Looking More Closely

I was in an office waiting room today, and they had CNN on, though with no sound.  So there was a Closed Captioning text scrawl at the bottom of the screen, translating the words.  The news story, as you might imagine, was about Ukraine.  And what I read on the scrawl really surprised me.  It said that the United States was going to offer Ukraine a support package of $18. 

Geez, I thought, that's not very much.  Eighteen measly dollars?  What are they doing, buying the entire country one cheese pizza?  Even Ellen got three for the Oscar audience.

I figured I had to be reading something wrong.  (No, it didn't take a genius to reach that conclusion.)  So, I took a closer look before everything scrolled off the screen.  I realized that it wasn't an "8" at all, but rather a capital "B."  The United States was offering $1B.  A billion dollars.  Okay, that's better.  A billion dollars buys a whole lot of pizza.