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How much is a trillion"

Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
From this site:

Crash Course Chapter 11: How Much Is A Trillion? - bills | Crash Course Videos at Chris Martenson - bills, Crash Course, Economy, liabilities, money, trillion, US debts

"A trillion is a very, very big number, and I think it would be worth spending a couple of minutes trying to get our arms around the concept.

First, a numerical review.
A thousand is a one with three zeros after it.
A million is a thousand times bigger than that and it’s a one with six zeros after it. At this level I can really get my mind around the difference between these two numbers. A million dollars in the bank is a very different concept from a thousand dollars in the bank. I get that.
A billion then is a thousand times bigger than a million, and it’s a one followed by 9 zeros.
And a trillion is a thousand times bigger than that, and it’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

So a trillion is a thousand billions, which means it is a million millions. You know what? I don’t know what that means! I can’t visualize that, so let’s take a different tack on this.

Suppose I gave you a thousand dollar bill and said you and a friend had to spend it all in a single evening out on the town. You’d have a pretty good time.
Now suppose you had a stack of thousand dollar bills that was four inches in height. If you did, you know what? Congratulations, you’d be a millionaire.
Now suppose you wanted to enter the super-elite of the wealthy and have a billion dollars. How tall of a stack of thousand dollar bills would that be?
The answer is a stack only 358 feet high, seen here barely reaching 1/3rd of the way up the Petronas towers.
Now how about a stack of thousand dollar bills to equal a trillion dollars? How tall would that stack be? Think of an answer.
Well, that stack would be 67.9 miles high.

And I meant stack, not laid end to end or anything cheesy like that. A solid stack of thousand dollar bills, 67.9 miles high. Now that’s a trillion dollars.

That still doesn’t do it for you?
Okay, I want you to imagine that you’re in a car on a roadway that is lined at the side with a sideways stack of thousand dollar bills. A nice, compact, rectangular column of thousand dollar bills is snaking along the roadside next to you as you drive.
You drive along brrrrrrrrrrrrr without stopping for a little more than an hour, and the entire way there’s that stack of thousand dollar bills right next you, on the side of the road, the whole way.
Said another way, the amount of money created in the past 4.5 months in our economic system, if it had been printed up as thousand dollar bills and stacked along the side of the road, would stretch from Springfield, Massachusetts to Albany, New York.

So there it is. Either you can visualize the stack better by driving along next to it, or by standing on top if it, or any other way you wish to express this statement.

But make no mistake, a trillion is a very, very big number and we should not be lulled into complacency simply because it is too big to really get our minds around. That should drive us to action instead."

Here's another way to look at it:

How may years is one trillion seconds?

One American trillion (ie. 1012) would equal about 31,688 years 269 days 17 hours 34 minutes 25 seconds. (Leap years counted)

One British trillion (ie. 1018) would equal about 31,688,738,506 years 296 days 8 hours 48 minutes 33 seconds. (Leap years counted)


Answer: 31,688 years
How many YEARS is a BILLION seconds?

Answer: 31.7 years

How many years is one million seconds?

Answer: It's just over 11 DAYS.


So what's the application? All I'm trying to do is make it very clear that when we are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars of national debt, this differs a LOT from MILLIONS of dollars, or BILLIONS of dollars. Million, billion, trillion, a gazillion - these aren't made up, fantasy words (OK, maybe a gazillion is, but honestly, what comes after a trillion?????) - these figures represent REAL MONEY, REAL DEBT, REAL ISSUES that WILL affect us, and our children and grandchildren in the future.
 
Sunstone

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Kathryn said:
So what's the application? All I'm trying to do is make it very clear that when we are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars of national debt, this differs a LOT from MILLIONS of dollars, or BILLIONS of dollars. Million, billion, trillion, a gazillion - these aren't made up, fantasy words (OK, maybe a gazillion is, but honestly, what comes after a trillion?????) - these figures represent REAL MONEY, REAL DEBT, REAL ISSUES that WILL affect us, and our children and grandchildren in the future.
Click to expand...

The magnitude of the national debt is best looked at in terms of the size of the economy as a whole (GDP), not in isolation from it. And then the resulting ratio of debt to GDP is best looked at in historical terms. The US, for instance, had a higher debt to GDP ratio right after World War II than it does today. Yet, the US economy did not sink under debt. And there is no reason to suppose that the US economy will necessarily sink under the government's current debt.
 
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Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
We haven't seen the worst of our national debt - not by a long shot.
 
Tiapan

Tiapan

Grumpy Old Man
Money is a bit like religion we are told to believe in it and use it but they are both virtual and not actually physically real. Money was a human concept that tries to assign a common value scale to services and goods. As with religion those with lots tend to abuse those without. It is a long time since it was linked to real commodity such as gold, where supply and demand sets a unit value. Once gold was worth $30 and ounce now its close to $1000. So has gold gone up or the virtual dollar gone down?

I am not denying those numbers in my virtual bank account on the internet can be translated to real tangible goods and services,. I am simply pointing out that money is virtual and has no real standard today.

Cheers
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Tiapan said:
Money is a bit like religion we are told to believe in it and use it but they are both virtual and not actually physically real. Money was a human concept that tries to assign a common value scale to services and goods. As with religion those with lots tend to abuse those without. It is a long time since it was linked to real commodity such as gold, where supply and demand sets a unit value. Once gold was worth $30 and ounce now its close to $1000. So has gold gone up or the virtual dollar gone down?

I am not denying those numbers in my virtual bank account on the internet can be translated to real tangible goods and services,. I am simply pointing out that money is virtual and has no real standard today.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Well, tell that to the IRS. If you don't move some of this intangible stuff from your bank account into their bank account, then they come with real guns (law enforcement) and you get to go to real jail.

I see what you're actually saying about the gold standard, but the implication seems to be that this isn't a real crisis that will affect real people, real jobs, real industries, real real estate, etc.

When the IRS takes that intangible stuff from my bank account, then there's less of it in there. That means I can't buy real stuff that I would have bought before - like real milk and eggs for my real kids. If I can't make my real car payment, then some big guys come and take my real car from me on, say, Tuesday. Then I can't get to my real job - and suddenly I don't even have the intangible stuff in my bank account.
 
Katzpur

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Kathryn, you've made some really, really good points. Thanks for a very informative post.
 
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