Picturing Our Debt

This comes courtesy of my dad and with all the bailout, budget, deficit and bonus amounts getting tossed about in the news, I felt it was apropos and worth sharing.

What does a trillion dollars look like? Using Google Sketchup, here's an idea of what exactly that amounts to.

Let's start with a $100 dollar bill, currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen one, slightly fewer have owned one. Guaranteed to make friends wherever it goes.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. It fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for a week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looks a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet.

And $1 BILLION dollars. Now we're really getting somewhere.

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number you'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.

Notice those pallets are double stacked and remember those are $100 bills.

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars," that's what they're talking about.

Something else to think about. On The Daily Show the other night, Jon Stewart and his guest economist, Peter Orszag, were discussing the projected deficit for the country. It was around $15 trillion over the next 10 years if we make cuts. So you have to take that last image and multiple it by 15. And you thought it was a horrifying sight by itself? Thank God my personal debt is still below the single pack of $10,000. Which is helped the fact that I have not had any fast food, bought any books, purchased alcohol or spent money going out more than one night a week since February 23rd. Unfortunately, while my friends who gave up things for lent get to start enjoying them again after Sunday, I have to keep up my budget crackdown because I need to limit how much I'm borrowing from my parents.