Finally, a chance to channel Dr Evil from the now classic Mike Myers comedy Austin Powers. Those who remember the film's sequel recall that Dr Evil goes back to '60s to steal Powers' mojo. He also establishes a moon base and threatens to destroy the earth with a laser beam. His first ransom demand is for 100 billion dollars, an amount of money so impossibly huge back then that it earns nothing but guffaws from the US president.

A similar time warp appeared to be in effect when UAE economy minister Sultan Al Mansouri was reported to have announced a plan by Abu Dhabi to spend $1 trillion dollars on infrastructure projects. Few news outlets with reporters at the Abu Dhabi Outlook Summit seemed to pick up this extraordinary pledge, not even the nation's official news agency, WAM. And for good reason.

First of all, Mr Al Mansouri has a lot of authority as the federal Government's minister of economy, but absolutely none to determine the fiscal outlays of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. For him to announce Abu Dhabi's infrastructure spending plans is like US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiling plans for California state to finance a string of California Govrenor Arnold Schwarzenegger fitness centres.

Of course, it might be tempting: Abu Dhabi's budget is about 5 times larger than the federal Government's, thanks to the fact that oil revenues accrue to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and not to the UAE. Even then, it isn't clear where Abu Dhabi would lay hold of $1 trillion dollars, which is a lot of money even for a large country. China has roughly $2 trillion in reserves, but even it has only managed to muster up plans to spend $585 billion, and only about 40 per cent of that was even supposed to come from the government anyway. The rest was supposed to be lent by banks. And $585 billion spreads out pretty nicely in a country of 1.2 billion people. The US, the world's largest economy, has a stimulus package of only $787 billion, with another $700 billion in financial bailouts, and it prints dollars.

Yet the US spending and borrowing programme is so large that many worry its debt will wreck the world's most important currency.

Even Saudi Arabia has only managed to pledge $400 billion of spending over the next five years in a country with 7 times as many people as the UAE.

Most educated guesses put Abu Dhabi's assets at about $350 billion, most of it at ADIA, so ADIA would have to dissolve so the emirate could spend all of that money and then every every cent it brings in for 10 years in order to come up with $1 trillion dollars in expenditures. Mr Al Mansouri reportedly said the plan was to spend the money in the "medium-term." There's no telling just what that means at the ministry of economy, but in the world of finance, it typically means 5 to 10 years.

So Abu Dhabi would be pouring $100 billion a year into an economy only about $115 billion in size. Even spending part of what it now earns is inflationary, and is one of the reasons Abu Dhabi keeps part of the money stashed at ADIA, invested back into US Treasuries and shares in Citigroup. Needless to say, the inflationary impact would be staggering. Imagine if US President Barack Obama, instead of passing his $787 billion stimulus package, he tried to lay on Congress plans to a $13 trillion stimulus package. Preposterous.

As the US president played by Tim Robbins told Dr Evil when he demanded $100 billion:  "That much money simply doesn't exist. I don't think l00 billion is even a number. It's like saying I want a kajillion bajillion dollars."