Reality Check

[caymin last]

My ten year old son who has an inquiring mind asked me " Dad, how much is a trillion dollars? "
Interesting question?
I was at a loss, how the heck do I explain this in terms that he could understand, so together we tried to find an answer.

Some perspective.

This is a neat little bundle that will fit in your pocket, $ 10,000 Ten Grand.

This is small enough to go inside a medium sized brown paper bag.
$1 Million

One pallet fully stacked to waist high.
$100 Million

Ten pallets stacked waist high.
$1 Billion

One thousand double stacked pallets, notice the figure at the bottom left hand corner.
$1 Trillion

"Wow Dad that's a lot, how long do you think it would take to spend it?"

If you spent 'One Million Dollars per day', it would take One Million days or
'Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty Years.'

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

According to the U.S. National Debt Clock.
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 02 Feb 2010 at 11:54:55 PM GMT is:
$12,353,674,200,584.02

What the heck?

 

[ultimate_monkey]

err ri think is a repost

 

[47willysbuggy]

I think its a repost
EDIT: Too slow..

 

[caymin last]

Repost, my bad. Never mind.

 

[hitman46mod]

How much propane was used to stack those pallets.:shock:

 

[4VRYNG]

How much propane was used to stack those pallets.:shock:

Eco nuts probably made them use electric forklifts.

 

[Rc_Kid]

I would be more amazed seeing this in real life, as the word "trillion" is thrown around way to much like it is nothing.

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

Eco nuts probably made them use electric forklifts.

How many of those forklift operators smoked weed before they came to work! Thats the real question here! :shock:

 

[RIG_RIDER]

How many of those forklift operators smoked weed before they came to work! Thats the real question here! :shock:

All of them.........:shock:

 

[gordieb]

I know this doesn't compare to the 1.4 trillion dollars our debt will be next year....


but I got this a while ago as an email it's related in the way a 2 dollar hooker is related to a 200 dollar one.



The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

a.. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

b.. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

c.. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

d.. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

e.. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans -

It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division ...

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean?

a.. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

b.. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

c..Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Does the average taxpayer really understand what a billion is?

 

[caymin last]

Does the average taxpayer really understand what a billion is?

Hell no! Not a clue. And the sadest part is, they don't seem to care.