Donkey Kong Forum
General Donkey Kong Discussion => General Donkey Kong Discussion => Topic started by: ersatz_cats on October 09, 2020, 08:20:44 am
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https://www.twingalaxies.com/ersatzcats/wall/8641/newly-revealed-audio-recordings-reveal-a-plot-by-billy-mitchell-to-falsify-evidence/page/1
I just did a long write-up on TG about a couple audio recordings TG submitted to the court this week in the Billy Mitchell lawsuit case. I'm not going to repost the whole write-up here (most of it is background on David Race's involvement in the dispute thus far), but here's the end of the write-up including links to the audio (which you all should definitely save):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wsW_qG6Jw3w9-OGep4UyE2vYSudqKuLM/view
The voice mail is less than a minute, so I can include a full transcript here:
"David Race, it's Billy Mitchell. How're you doing, sir? I was talking to Chris Ayra. Naturally, we talk about you when we talk. I hadn't talked to you in a while. I hadn't talked to you since you've generously given so much effort on my behalf and, well, sometimes that hits me softer than others, harder than others, and I just wanted to call and say hi. I hope things are well with you. We, a small group of us, are going to be in Indianapolis next month, and I think of Indiana, I think of Ohio, and geez, they're not all that far apart and, gee, I think, I think, and I wonder if you might be available to come by and say hi. That's all. Alright, guy. The very best to you. I appreciate everything. I'll talk to you again. Bye."
Gosh, Billy seems rather appreciative of all the work David was doing to defend him. Kinda undercuts the whole "I had nothing to do with him, he was just out operating on his own accord" bit, huh?
But here's the real whammy! Here's this post's raison d'etre. An 11-minute and 26-second segment from April 2018 where Billy discusses his Master Plan. I'll post the full transcript for this recording in the comments below, [Go to the TG post for that] but honestly, this is way too good for the transcript. Sit back and listen to Billy in his own words:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11PLn9I4w_9awQB-jZb0-V82DxeXchVgl/view
Okay, before we even get to Billy's wacky hijinks, let's establish a few things. First, regarding the legality of these recordings, the opening "Okay, you ready?" makes it sound as though Billy understood that David was beginning a recording. (Although, it turns out, David lives in Ohio which is a "one-party" recording state, meaning that it's perfectly legal for him to record his own conversation with Billy even if Billy was not aware of it.) Billy also paraphrases Rob Childs as saying that since David "is not as technical" as others, he doesn't skip anything and thus finds things that other techs overlook, adding "He's certainly becoming an expert whether he likes it or not." And as for Carlos, Billy references having casual chats with Carlos, and even claims to have confided in Carlos his big "Top Secret" (which we will discuss shortly), undermining his claims that Carlos was some random nobody who had no real involvement with Billy or his defense.
But yes, apparently, during the active dispute, Billy had concocted a plan to falsify and misrepresent evidence, with the sole apparent goal of trying to discredit Twin Galaxies and dispute participants!
Basically, from the sound of it, Billy would play a 1,062,800 Donkey Kong score, and would record it twice. One recording would be a direct feed with no sound, attempting to make the tape appear as similar to his "direct feed" (MAME) tapes from yesteryear as possible. The other recording would be an over-the-shoulder camera with full confirmation, including filming the board and control panel. Billy would then have the direct feed tape sent to Jace by way of an unidentified third party in New Hampshire, hoping that it would be accepted by TG and dispute participants as the long lost Boomers tape. Billy, at least in his mind, would then sit back and watch as all his jealous haters would froth over this tape, pick it apart, and declare it was MAME like the other tapes. Then, once everyone has committed to this tape being MAME, Billy would reveal that the score was actually a brand new game hitting the same score, and he would publish the over-the-shoulder camera showing that it was, in fact, genuine arcade the whole time. And thus, Billy believes, TG and everyone in the dispute would be forever discredited.
There are so many hilarious elements to this. First of all, how could he possibly believe this plan would even succeed? The first thing people would do is look at screen transitions, see that they're arcade transitions (assuming Billy would actually play this game on a real DK board), and say "Okay, it's arcade." And if Billy didn't play genuine arcade, if he played on a multicade, his over-the-shoulder video would reflect that.
The second thing people would do is compare the tape to what footage we have of the tape played at Big Bang in 2010. And, of course, people would immediately say "Yeah, this isn't the Boomers game." In the recording, it's hilarious listening to David's consternation, as he tries to interject to point out this rather significant flaw in Billy's plan, which Billy simply fails to acknowledge.
I mean, I know I'm taking a risk straying from the facts of the case, but it feels like there's some serious projection going on here. "They're just jealous haters who don't care about the truth! They'll jump on any excuse they can find to attack and slander me." Okay? This from a guy who is now on the record bragging about upstaging his closest competitors by exactly 1,000 points, on tapes which the community has proven were not produced authentically as claimed. (Although, the actual total Billy upstaged Steve and Hank by was 1,100. Maybe Billy's memory is failing.)
Speaking of projection, hasn't Billy spent the last two and a half years accusing Dwayne Richard of basically this exact same thing (i.e., producing a tape and presenting it under false pretenses to see if they can slip it by Twin Galaxies)?
In fact, if you're in Billy's position, with your scores under serious dispute, why would you even put yourself on the record as being anywhere near a plan like this? You really want the headline to be "Newly revealed audio recordings reveal a plot by Billy Mitchell to falsify evidence"? Why would you directly play into the notion that you're a scammer who passes off fake tapes? Forget the MAME evidence. Why would Twin Galaxies have any reason to trust you after that? Why would anyone?
Thinking more about this, something else occurred to me. When Billy loses, he likes to simply declare victory anyway. When asked in an interview about losing the lawsuit against Regular Show, he just suggested the case wasn't necessarily done yet. Billy freely spins the truth into convenient narratives (such as that he hit his contested scores "exactly on the head" when he failed to do so, or that his critics disappear when Billy scores a million when they actually don't). If Billy had gone through with this stunt, the obvious result would be that dispute participants, who had become well-versed in identifying MAME recordings from genuine arcade due to a host of signatures particular to one variant or the other, would have sussed out which platform his mystery tape was played on, and also would have proven that it was definitely not the long lost Boomers tape. But that wouldn't have stopped Billy from simply declaring victory, yet again. I could see him conducting this caper, annoying everyone in the dispute who would have seen right through it, but then simply turning around and declaring to the world that he had successfully put one over on his "haters" who, he would claim, all took the bait and all discredited themselves.
And that brings me to what might be the most hilarious part of this whole plot. In that recording, he seems quite confident that he's going to match his old score in no time, doesn't he? Billy likes to say he got this score so effortlessly in 2010 (at least until that story becomes inconvenient, and then suddenly extra undisclosed days of practice and attempts get tacked on in later retellings). In reality, it took Billy two years of Twitch streaming to surpass this score, which was achieved on a score pace he still has yet to match. It seems this whole wacky escapade was foiled by nothing more than Billy's own inability to redo a score he wanted us to believe he could do any time he wanted.
But really, who knows what goes on in that guy's head. Maybe his next argument will be the "April Fools defense".
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Thanks as always Walter for putting all of this together in a smorgasbord of lies revealed. <Billy> <Kuh> <Walter>
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The irony with that audio clip is inescapable.
For years Billy warned TG officials that Roy Shildt had said that he would at some point try to "blow one past TG", and that whole Redmond/Steve's garage incident which was recapped as part of KoK brought those concerns into the forefront once again.
Here we are 15+ years later and Billy has been caught plotting to do exactly the same thing to TG.
I said this once before...he's following the "Roy Shildt Playbook". Many of Roy's stunts which Billy decried decades back, he is doing those very same things in the here and now.
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Does David Race have any public contact information? (I'm not on Facebook.)
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I guess I will play just a bit of devil's advocate by pointing out that the plan, as outlined here, was not actually to submit a fraudulent score. What he was planning to do was play a new, legitimate game, submit it under the false pretense that it was the 2010 performance, and then subsequently reveal that it was a new performance. Coming clean (once he'd embarrassed everybody to his satisfaction or whatever) seems to have been part of this plan.
So, while the plan as outlined was certainly devious and manipulative, it was more of a psyop than an actual attempt to cheat, and the game itself would have (presumably) been on the up-and-up.
Shows a lot about how his mind works though, and makes it all the more believable that there was skulduggery at work in the original submissions.
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I guess I will play just a bit of devil's advocate by pointing out that the plan, as outlined here, was not actually to submit a fraudulent score. What he was planning to do was play a new, legitimate game, submit it under the false pretense that it was the 2010 performance, and then subsequently reveal that it was a new performance. Coming clean (once he'd embarrassed everybody to his satisfaction or whatever) seems to have been part of this plan.
So, while the plan as outlined was certainly devious and manipulative, it was more of a psyop than an actual attempt to cheat, and the game itself would have (presumably) been on the up-and-up.
Shows a lot about how his mind works though, and makes it all the more believable that there was skulduggery at work in the original submissions.
i have simliar feelings IF we take the plan at face value. I've stated as much at twin galaxies and it seemed to really bother some people i would suggest that. as it was stated, it was more of a test than a true plot to cheat. but consider this, what do we think he would've done if people correctly declared it was arcade? is it possible he actually did want help faking a score and just gave this story to david to convince him to help as well as to be a plan b if he later got caught? submit a fake score, if it works it works, and if it doesnt work just explain it was all part of a test.
in order for such a test to be fair, he would've had to inform jace. you know "how jace i'm gonna submit this fake dont tell the dk guys, we need to test them".
a dirty cop for example, when caught, cant just say "um i was working undercover, i didnt tell my superiors cause i didnt wanna risk someone finding out", if you're gonna go undercover and engage in such things it needs to be documented somewhere to make sure this isnt just the cover story
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I guess I will play just a bit of devil's advocate by pointing out that the plan, as outlined here, was not actually to submit a fraudulent score. What he was planning to do was play a new, legitimate game, submit it under the false pretense that it was the 2010 performance, and then subsequently reveal that it was a new performance. Coming clean (once he'd embarrassed everybody to his satisfaction or whatever) seems to have been part of this plan.
So, while the plan as outlined was certainly devious and manipulative, it was more of a psyop than an actual attempt to cheat, and the game itself would have (presumably) been on the up-and-up.
Shows a lot about how his mind works though, and makes it all the more believable that there was skulduggery at work in the original submissions.
Yes, the "cheating" aspect has been misunderstood or as you suggest misapplied in reference to the planned submission of a "lost tape." Although most people I talked to didn't think the plan would work, it's reasonable to conclude that his aim was to discredit/derail the tribunal review. It's a weird top secret plan since Mitchell was supposedly working to exonerate himself at the time, Carlos had another week of testing before submitting his results for example. But here have Mitchell sharing a plan to submit a 1.062 direct feed tape that would apparently surface in New Hampshire and be anonymously sent to TG - the goal was to give it the aura of being Mitchell's lost Boomer's tape, whereafter he imagined the haters would denounce it as MAME, and then he'd send in (or post to YouTube?) a second video featuring Mitchell on-camera that showed the same game from an over-the-shoulder camera, confirming it was arcade, complete with equipment and PCB check. With the adjudicators and Jace embarrassed and discredited, Mitchell references twice I think that he would be banned after revealing his involvement in the tapes. Presumably the overall integrity of the dispute would be damaged in the eyes of the wider gaming community or public, giving some room for people to doubt the process and its conclusions around the 1.047 and 1.050 tapes.
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That's what's so weird about this plan! What did he think would be damaged more after the Big Reveal - the credibility of the dispute, or the credibility of him?
"Haha, look, I just successfully tricked you all, demonstrating my enjoyment of dramatic sleight-of-hand mindgames. This ought to convince you that those three older performances were definitely real, and not also tricks."
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It reminds me of someone who knowingly submitted an improper format performance to TG just to "test" the system. Nobody had a heads up. Someone noticed the issue and the submitter was like "hey you passed the test kinda" but I remember thinking what a shitty way to test the system while ruining the chances that anyone will look at your runs again.
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It reminds me of someone who knowingly submitted an improper format performance to TG just to "test" the system. Nobody had a heads up. Someone noticed the issue and the submitter was like "hey you passed the test kinda" but I remember thinking what a shitty way to test the system while ruining the chances that anyone will look at your runs again.
i remember that and fought the urge to include the example. without shaming the individual, for those cocnerend, he wanst banned because he didnt follow the rules of the track but nor did he falsify evidence. you can have wrong setting for example at tg, but as long as you dont doctor the video to make the settings appear to be correct then you havent falsified evidence. bannings there are only for falsified evidence thats why that guy get away with it. its hard to claim submittnig mame as arcade though is just submitting to the wrong track especially with all the effort made to make it appear like arcade.
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it should be just an open and shut case in court. Just as it was with anyone with a logical brain. Is this going to keep going on forever?
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Like why isnt it just played out in court?
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what I mean is, what is the discussion?
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I just don't understand why an innocent person would go through so much trouble to discredit an investigative body, then tell others that there is evidence that will complete exonerate them but nobody can see it at this time. Seriously.
I saw a post on Facebook where one of Team Billy is saying "I saw the evidence that was not made available to TG or the public that proves Billy is innocent".
Why on Earth would you hide evidence? Why would you have evidence that can clear your name but refuse to show it, refuse to even take part in the investigation (dispute). An innocent person would have to be crazy to act that way.
FailFish FailFish FailFish FailFish FailFish FailFish FailFish
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<Billy> is a drama queen, first and foremost. He has a core need to do everything at the last possible moment for dramatic effect. Here are a few shining examples...
Initial filming of "Chasing Ghosts" Aug/05 in Laconia -this was the day of the recreation of the Life Magazine shot. Mike and Lincoln had a small 3 hour window with which to get the shot both setup and them cleaned up inclusive of dealing with any straggler vehicles parked in the background prior to the shoot.
I was there with everyone else. With the shot all ready Billy was nowhere in sight. The two guys running the show asked Walter where he was, then <Walter> makes another infamous call. Then at the last possible moment, his royal highness saunters out from about a block or so away from around the corner where some cars were parked. He was likely waiting there the whole time so as to add dramatic effect...and in the process wasting everyone else's time including that of the producer and director.
Airport Interview - I watched a much older interview of Billy quite awhile back. He was sitting in a cafe area within sight of the area where you go thru the final gate to board the plane, and "last call" was being made. He was pointedly telling the interviewer to "watch this" and he proceeded to again wait until the last possible second before getting off his chair to saunter over to the employee monitoring the gate. He gave a reason for doing this to the interviewer as well which I cannot clearly remember, but it was something like "because (I) can".
ACAM 2005 - who can forget the orchestrated series of events leading up to the showing of that 1.047M tape at the event ? From the "wrong tape" given to Doris Self which turned out to be a wrestling tape to the orchestrated drama regarding <Kuh> being filmed delivering the tape to ACAM with instructions to "guard it with his life" to having Kuh show a third of it each night with the full presentation at the event itself. All to generate drama...all orchestrated in advance at the expense of a competitor <Wiebe> who actually bothered to show up and play live in front of his peers.
So it would not surprise me in the least, court proceeding or not, for him to pull the same nonsense once again.
Maybe, if he has some real pull, he can convince someone to pose the question during the current grilling of the new Supreme Court candidate and ask her how she would rule in this all-important matter which, in Billy's own words, is a conspiracy on par with the Kennedy assassination.
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What is truly laughable is what Billy actually considers to be "evidence". He can have a hundred people sign affidavits testifying to his "character" or "believability"...it means squat in a court of law.
In the unrelated court case of "The Preppy Murder" from the 1980's convicted murderer Robert Chambers' family had their local bishop testifying as to his "character" even though he was guilty as sin, so such testimony is meaningless in a court of law other than to show who someone knows...or who is willing to lie on their behalf no matter what the stakes.
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I just wanna give a BIG thanks to Jeremy Young, OmniGamer, Apollo Legend, Ersatz Cats, Jace Hall, <Roy>, and everyone else who helped expose the cheating, underhanded manipulations and lies of <Billy>, <Walter> and crew.
Also a 'thank you' is extended to those like Carlos and David Race who displayed honesty and integrity at the expense of exposing someone they may have considered a friend.
Honestly the whole thing, to me, seemed larger than just Bill's records, it really helped clear the air of a toxicity that was within the community, particularly the TG community. It was something that had needed done for a long, long time. Just ask <Roy>
I wish TG and Jace Hall the best of luck in their lawsuit against <Billy>.
Rest in Power Apollo Legend
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I'm just getting caught up on this now. Every few months I think, "I wonder what's going on with the Donkey Kong court case."
This plan of Billy's makes absolutely no sense. If he recorded a legitimate game off of a real arcade game, why did he think people would say it was MAME? Does he not understand how people can tell the difference? What a warped perception of reality this guy has.
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This plan of Billy's makes absolutely no sense. If he recorded a legitimate game off of a real arcade game, why did he think people would say it was MAME? Does he not understand how people can tell the difference? What a warped perception of reality this guy has.
Quite the contrary, he knows exactly how reality works, and has been using that to his advantage for years. Back during the dispute, his defense was constantly changing and evolving as avenues were ruled out. Eventually he was stuck with 'Dwayne did it' and when that got washed out by the MTV interview, he switched to lawsuit mode, and has started suing just about everyone involved. This is what you do when you've been born with a silver spoon up your ass and haven't had it kicked enough to know that being rich doesn't equal being a superior person.
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Well over a year ago, somewhere on the TG forum after the hammer came down, I speculated that Billy might be so inclined as to claim some form of "loss of income" related to all those appearance fees he became accustomed to receiving, so I was not at all surprised at how that did indeed become part of one (or more) of his lawsuits. But I think that Billy also, more than the money, misses the attention he would receive at every stage of the trip, the recognition, etc.
The reality is that DK is now 40+ years old, and while the record itself is still an achievement to be proud of for whoever holds the crown at any given time, the days of the media falling all over itself as it did when Wiebe's first score was announced are long since gone. Even two women who most recently gave birth to 9 and 10 kids received nowhere near the attention that "Octomom" did over a decade ago.
For Billy to expect that the "gravy train" would just keep rolling along, especially when he was not on top, is totally unrealistic. The media opportunities did not dry up as he believes because of his scores getting yanked...he's simply not on top anymore, in fact he's not even top ten. That's not a slam against Billy, it's simply a matter of fact. And it's not that he does not play well, it's just that there are now more players who are far better.
The "gravy train" and the "limelight" are largely gone, and that's besides the score removal issue. If you think about it, if it was not for the lawsuits currently underway, his name would not exactly be popping up regularly in social media.
The recent attempt at a "beyond perfect" score on "Pacman" largely floundered. I think he "found" six extra dots on the anniversary edition and took around 10 days to pull off getting them all. Not exactly media worthy. Even today, a simple Google search of "perfect Pacman" will inevitably result in 3,333,360 coming up.
Someone suggested that this whole lawsuit thing is nothing more than to rev up interest in a possible sequel or re-do of KoK which, after 14 years now, the possible interest in such a project is purely speculative...but if some believed there was a big payday involved, who knows.
As for suing for other forms of lost income, such as any drop in revenue from either the restaurant(s) or the hot sauce company, I can't see any judge siding with the "logic" that his high scores created some form of tourist attraction out of the restaurants or of interest in the hot sauce business itself. Celebs buy and run businesses all the time...some thrive, most flounder. It just doesn't stand to reason that if restaurants owned by A-List celebs folded even with the star power of whoever is behind them that Billy's restaurants and hot sauce are continuing because of his high scores. The parallel is just too weak to be reasonable and viable.
Even Planet Hollywood no longer is packing them in like years back, and this place was originally backed by three of the biggest action film box office draws from the 90's, and their claims to fame are a LOT more well known than a high score on Pacman (a shared score at that, as the "beyond perfect" score is a colossal joke)
I won't even mention how overall restaurant revenue is down across the entire country for 15+ months now due to the pandemic. As for the hot sauce business, there are hundreds if not thousands of brands out there, many of which are as good as Billy's and a good number of which are way better. So if business is down in the hot sauce business any good lawyer could argue that while he is wasting his time on lawsuits the number of his competitors just keeps growing. "Rickey's" is quite literally one out of several hundred or more right now. Cue up "hot sauce" or "best hot sauce" via Google search and so many others come up first.
As for his being "defamed", that he pretty much did to himself...and his recorded conversation with David just goes to show the kind of person he truly is. Ultimately I envision that much as certain other well known celebs over the years said this or that which shot their own fame in the foot (and then some), Billy will be known for that as well.
He may end up being known as a one-time great player who could not stand being anything but number one...not unlike the "South Park" cartoon...and may even become more well known for his series of lawsuits than for the actual scores that he did do at one point, excluding the few that he did not under original hardware.
So long as he does not have to pony up any of his own money he will launch lawsuit after lawsuit, something that I hope will come to an end if sanity prevails in the legislative body and torte reform is enacted to prevent such nuissance lawsuits and frivolous ones as well.
The pandemic is still with us after 15 months, well over a half million people have died, the world's economy is not good right now...I won't even go into the state of American politics...and Billy's priority, for well over a year now, is his Donkey Kong scores. That pretty much says it all.
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The pandemic is still with us after 15 months, well over a half million people have died, the world's economy is not good right now...I won't even go into the state of American politics...and Billy's priority, for well over a year now, is his Donkey Kong scores. That pretty much says it all.
thanks for the update Robert, I always enjoy your input. Just want to pick on this point, because it irks me when people from the US only quote US numbers. It is indeed well over half a million people, closing in on 4 million world wide.
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The pandemic is still with us after 15 months, well over a half million people have died, the world's economy is not good right now...I won't even go into the state of American politics...and Billy's priority, for well over a year now, is his Donkey Kong scores. That pretty much says it all.
thanks for the update Robert, I always enjoy your input. Just want to pick on this point, because it irks me when people from the US only quote US numbers. It is indeed well over half a million people, closing in on 4 million world wide.
I believe Robert was framing it for the USA because Billy is a USA personality (unfortunately).
What irks me is when people from outside the USA just assume everyone in the US is some kind of special ignorance that their own country would never have, and yet I see people from all over the world making just as naive assumptions as anyone from America might. In fact, a recent aptitude test was given to people all over the world, and it showed Europeans scoring even lower than Americans. However, the article 'spun' the results of the study to only show the American results, which looked rather poor. I remember countless times Europeans would link to that article and point and laugh at Americans. I would calmly tell them "read the actual study and see how your country did". Nobody ever replied back (because they looked).
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The pandemic is still with us after 15 months, well over a half million people have died, the world's economy is not good right now...I won't even go into the state of American politics...and Billy's priority, for well over a year now, is his Donkey Kong scores. That pretty much says it all.
thanks for the update Robert, I always enjoy your input. Just want to pick on this point, because it irks me when people from the US only quote US numbers. It is indeed well over half a million people, closing in on 4 million world wide.
I believe Robert was framing it for the USA because Billy is a USA personality (unfortunately).
What irks me is when people from outside the USA just assume everyone in the US is some kind of special ignorance that their own country would never have, and yet I see people from all over the world making just as naive assumptions as anyone from America might. In fact, a recent aptitude test was given to people all over the world, and it showed Europeans scoring even lower than Americans. However, the article 'spun' the results of the study to only show the American results, which looked rather poor. I remember countless times Europeans would link to that article and point and laugh at Americans. I would calmly tell them "read the actual study and see how your country did". Nobody ever replied back (because they looked).
I agree you're probably right. It was just the way he mentioned the number of people and the world economy in the same sentence. Anyway, not worth debating too much, you're absolutely correct.
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Actually "Bounty Bob" is correct...more often than not my local newspapers only show the US numbers in highlights and tend to list the worldwide numbers as an afterthought. Apologies !!