25 March 2009
Putting a Deficit in the Trillions into Perspective
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: World Economy .
Peter Anderson sent me this disturbing depiction from Glenn Beck of a trillion dollars. You have to look hard to find the little man on the bottom picture:
Anyway, what exactly are we talking about here? A trillion here, a trillion there… but how much is a trillion dollars?
Some clever guy (not me) decided to make some graphics to show you. So, without further ranting, here you go:
Let’s start with a $100 dollar bill. It’s currently the largest US denomination in general circulation. They’re guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.
A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than ½” thick and contains $10,000.
Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.
While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet.
And here’s $1 billion… which is really impressive.
Okay, so let’s look at one trillion dollars. It’s the number we’ve been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.
Are you ready for this?
It’s pretty surprising.
Ladies and gentlemen, one trillion dollars!
(Did you notice that those pallets are double stacked?)
So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase “trillion dollars,” that’s what they’re talking about. And your great-grandkids are still gonna be paying it off…
Mail this post
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
