What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Michelle37 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:21:09 GMT

All I can say is....

OI !

That's crazy beyond belief!!!

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

theshift — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:26:10 GMT

ABUABE: I think next time you do math with a lot of zeros you should use a calculator because you would need 10,000 pallets to have 1 trillion dollars. Each pallet is 100 Million dollars not 1 Billion dollars. Next time you should open your mind a little more and maybe you will see things as they really are. We as human beings need to open our minds more and not be so quick to defend the greedy elite who created modern day slavery.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Don Fletcher — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:07:08 GMT

Let us go back to economic basics, When the government buys treasury bonds that is repayment of public debt, not borrowing.

When government sells treasury bonds, that truly is borrowing. Now during the G.W.Bush administration we saw the US government selling trillions of dollars of treasury bonds. That was grand scale borrowing. We had to expect that this money would have to be paid back, sometime.

We would have to applaud repayment of debt if it were not at a time when we feel so cash strapped. We are so cash strapped because the US government has been selling trillions of dollars of bonds.

True the government has also been spending that excess money on wars. It has been spending that money into the economy. So why have we found this so draining? Perhaps someone other than ourselves have been getting that bonanza of militarial-industrial spending.

Now we find it necessary to pay that money back into the economy. No big surprise. We expected this.

Now how large a stack a trillion is? The same size as when it was borrowed.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Pat Sullivan — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:37:27 GMT

I think the graphic may actually be understated. Maybe I'm missing something - if so please point it out. I think Abuabe's math may be wrong. He's correct to state that the graphic shows 5,000 pallets, but you have to divide by 10 since 10 pallets make one billion. So 5,000 becomes 500 - which is $500 Billion. Or said another way - 1 pallet equals $100 million and 5,000 times that amount is $500 Billion. At least that's what I get on Excel since my HP won't go that high. Help me - I've been out of school too long, but I feel like I''m doing something wrong. If I'm right, then the graphic should be 4 pallets high - very scary.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Rick5543 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:04:15 GMT

Did not notice the double stack, Sorry, Rick in Florida, sun got to my brain!

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Rick5543 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:02:54 GMT

If one billion is ten pallets, then One Trillion would be 1,000 x 10 or 10,000 pallets. Actually there are not 10,000 pallets in the illustration. As close as I could count, the illustration is 60 x 100, or only 6,000 Pallets, ie 600 billion, a little more than half of the Trillion. Rick in Florida

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

potter1958 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:19:29 GMT

Thanks Democrats, I'm going to write my senator today to become illegal!

*FORMS ARE GOING FAST- SIGN UP TODAY!*

*Becoming Illegal (Actual letter from an Iowa resident and sent to

his senator)*

*The Honorable Tom Harkin*

*731 Hart Senate Office Building*

*Phone (202) 224 3254*

*Washington** DC , 20510*

*Dear Senator Harkin,*

*As a native Iowan and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue

Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted

the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the

process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.*

*My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen

to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by

the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this

bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in

the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a

citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the

last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious

to get the process started before everyone figures it out.*

*Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay

taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two

years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way

that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an

excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in

2004 and 2005.*

*Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local

emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have

stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures

I could save almost $10,000 a year.*

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

waltkabai — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:59:31 GMT

Great visual!

Here's another little practical guide relating to big numbers:

A million seconds in time are about 11-1/2 days. A billion seconds are over 31-1/2 years. A trillion seconds are over 31,000 years!

The Declaration of Independence was signed a mere 7.3 billion seconds ago!

Did you know that it is literally impossible for a person to actually count to one billion. If someone went like this: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, etc., and did that continuously for 8 hours a day, seven days a week, it would take over 93 years to count to one billion! Counting like that for 24 hours each day, which would be impossible to do, would take over 31-1/2 years to reach one billion.

If you want to verify the numbers, there are 86,400 seconds in one day.

Walter K.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

abuabe — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:40:38 GMT

The last illustration is wrong 100x100 is 10 000 billions which equals 10 trillions

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

dennd — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:48:20 GMT

If the US govt. gave every man and woman a million dollars with the stipulation that the buy a neww car and a house plus they spend the remander on consumer good and services, the financial crisis in the US would be over.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

rdrake316 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:39:49 GMT

Here is an example of the mentality that we are up against. This is the Kudlow show from CNBC. He has on Peter Schiff and two Mutual Fund honchos. Just watch:

www.youtube.com/watch

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

ejb4501 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:22:02 GMT

Dr. Mercola, how many more visuals of a trillion dollars do we have to see? It's getting absurd. Why not make an illustration using $1 bills? These illustrations are getting cartoonish anyway, surely we could, say, show a stack of 'em reaching from the Earth to Uranus! Where was this onslaught of illustrations after the first Bush term, after he jacked up national debt by 40%?!? Or in the last year of his second term, by which time he had nearly DOUBLED the national debt he inherited from Clinton?!? No, these "fascinating visuals" are propagandistic and hold virtually NO value, for many reasons, but largely because they lack meaningful context, and are frankly meant only to manipulate a purely emotional response in the uninformed. Stop pandering. It's a dire time. We all know that. We all want to reduce the national debt and maintain the value of a dollar. But the last four Republican Administrations have exploded national debt: Reagan inherited 930 BILLION, raised it 189% to 2.7 TRILLION, in two terms! Bush One raised it another 55%, to 4.2 TRILLION, in only ONE TERM! Clinton reigned things in, and the national debt went up only 36% over TWO terms, for the lowest percentage of annual growth in debt in decades. Then, Bush 2, and debt went up 89% to 10.7 TRILLION!!! So I find it interesting that as long as you have some guy in the WH screaming about Communists or WMDS, people turn their backs as these SOB's funnel our money to the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about, folks like KBR & Haliburton. Now you have a budget that wants to funnel money to healthcare, a green economy and alternative energy as a way out of this mess, and suddenly this country has a catastrophic debt issue. It's B.S. As to the bailouts, nobody wants them, unless it's their job that might be saved. Finally, I'm all for a gold-based currency, minimal debt, a balanced budget. But until we get that, this Admin is playing the best hand it can with the crappy cards it was dealt.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

saynotoquacks — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:38:22 GMT

I wonder what all the money Bush spent on Iraq would look like? He's the one who completely annihilated our surplus and got us into this economic mess in the first place, for a war that was completely unjustified, which Obama wisely voted against. Too bad nobody criticized Bush for that. Now Obama has to try to fix what Bush messed up.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

stanjz — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:28:22 GMT

It's a problem when a person tries to be a jack of all trades. The government has to increase the money supply for a growing population and an expanding economy. Yes, the money supply is something to be looked along with many other things such as: wage growth, contracts, trade, spending and more. It's amazing how right Dr Mercola can be about drug companies, the media, insurance companies and health, but shift the blame away from the corporations and back to the government at the last second. Our government is an extension of the people. They/we are the ones who push for legislation that is both good and bad. Corporations are the ones who ruthlessly pursue profits at the cost to society in so many ways. I'm not talking about business here; I'm talking about large corporations.

The Republican Party is the party that has always lionized corporations and demonized government. It makes no sense at all that Dr Mercola and Ron Paul would align themselves with the corporate party. Maybe the tax issue is the most important thing to them? I mean, too much is never enough, apparently.

re: What Does a Trillion Dollars Look Like?

Happy_Dog — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:28:54 GMT

What does a trillion dollars look like? www.youtube.com/watch