Sunday, October 5, 2008

Some Perspective on Trillion

Our illustrious politicians love throwing around words like "Millions", "Billions" and "Trillions", so I decided maybe it would be helpful if one kinda put these terms into perspectives a mere mortal might comprehend.


A million seconds is 13 days
A billion seconds is 31 years.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

A million minutes ago was – 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago.
A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

A million hours ago was in 1885.
A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.
A trillion dollars is so large a number that only politicians can use the term in conversation… probably because they seldom think about what they are really saying. I’ve read that mathematicians do not even use the term trillion!

Here is some perspective on TRILLION:
Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.
The country has not existed for a trillion seconds.
Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds.
One trillion seconds ago – 31,688 years – Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe.

The current United States debt limit was just raised , to accommodate the bailout bill costs, to -----13 TRILLION!!!

6 comments:

  1. I just took my head out of the sand for a second to read this.......Whew, back in she goes.

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  2. That's just plain scary! Thanks for putting that into perspective.

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  3. That was mind boggling and made my head hurt. I'm like Granny...I'm putting my head back in the sand.

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  4. Well I'm kinda glad I will hopefully only be around for another 31 billion seconds since I can hardly comprehend that trillion dollar deal.
    Whew!! Very scary!!

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  5. I love fun with math....unless we start counting how fast my 401K has dropped this year.

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  6. Where do you get this stuff from! LOL

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Speak up, don't be a nebish---your opinions do count.