Grasping A Trillion Dollars
Debbie Morgan | 24.03.2009 17:42 | Analysis | Free Spaces | World
Do we really understand the true scope of $1 trillion? We better, since our government is spending trillions of our taxpayer dollars on bailing out failing businesses!
With the $700 Billion Bush Bailout plan, the $787 Billion Obama Stimulus plan and the new possibly $1 trillion Obama bailout, it is high time people understand just what “a trillion” is. If they truly understood this, I think they would all be as livid as I! (Bear with me, because this does not make for great reading…but it is extremely enlightening!)
We can all agree that we would be sitting really pretty if we had a six-figure income, right? Let’s say we made a consistent $150,000 a year, starting at age 18 until we retired at age 75. I’ll do the math…We would have made $8,550,000 in our life. That is not bad, but lets say we stumbled upon something really crazy and made a consistent $250,000 per year for the same period. We would have made $14,250,000 for our life’s work. Now, keep in mind, that is with absolutely NO raise for the 57 years of work…Now, lets think about this, 100,000 people can work for $150,000, or 70,000 people for $250,000, for the 57 years and that would STILL not be $1 trillion.
The population of the United States is estimates at 305,982,756 at the time of this writing. The population of the world, at the same time, is 6,765,807,365. It would take more than 3,251 US populations, or 147 world populations, to get even close to 1 trillion people. Have you grasped what a trillion is yet?
Ok, lets look at something else. If we divided $1 trillion by the population of the United States, EACH person, that is each man, woman, and child, would receive $3,251. Now, THAT would stimulate the economy! Now let’s averaged by household, there are approximately 117,687,214 households in the US. That means that EACH household would receive more than $8,497. What could you do with that?
Let’s get social, shall we?
As of 2007, there were an estimated 671,859 homeless people in the United States. With $1 trillion, we could give EACH homeless person approximately $1,488,407!
According to I Care About Orphans, there is an estimated 127,000 children awaiting homes in the United States. With $1 trillion, we could give EACH child more than $7,874,000.
In 2006, it was estimated that there were 36,500,000 people in the US living in poverty. With $1 trillion, you could give EACH person living in poverty more than $26,000.
Are you grasping what $1 trillion is yet?
Or, in more abstract terms, a trillion grains of sand would weigh over 73 tons…it would take 62 days for light to travel a trillion miles…1 trillion dollar bills taped end to end it would stretch from Earth to the Sun at its farthest distance from the Sun.
Former Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee had some interesting figures. According to him, with $1 trillion, we could buy 1000 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies for every for every single person in the United States or we could put 8,000,000-plus students through a four-year Private College. Huckabee came up with this, but I did some re-figuring for more current estimates and according to the market values which appeared on Forbes for early Feb, 2009, with $1 trillion, we could actually purchase Microsoft ($168B), Walmart ($188B), Google ($107B), Coca-Cola ($100B), Pepsi Co ($80B), Apple, Inc ($83B), and Time Warner ($35B) and still have $243 Billion left over to purchase even more businesses!
Astounding? Do you get it yet? $1 trillion is $1,000,000,000,000, that is 1,000 billions. Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world according to Forbes, is worth $62 billion. That is not even CLOSE to $1 trillion! So, the next time our Elected Officials tell you they need anywhere near $1 trillion, please remember what $1 trillion is really worth!
http://www.takebackwashington.com/articles/GraspingATrillionDollars.html
Endnotes:
Census
http://www.census.gov/
National Alliance to End Homelessness
http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/data/homelessmap
I Care About Orphans
http://www.icareaboutorphans.org/?Menu=2
Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Declines, Number of Uninsured Up
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/010583.html
If You had $1 Trillion
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?fa=News.View&News_id=5868487c-f4ac-411b-a1ca-9f97e886a95a
The World’s Billionaires
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Warren-Buffett_C0R3.html
Saw’s Saws
www.sawssaws.com
Graphic illustration of a Trillion:
http://www.kickthemallout.com/article.php/Story-What_Does_A_Trillion_Look_Like
We can all agree that we would be sitting really pretty if we had a six-figure income, right? Let’s say we made a consistent $150,000 a year, starting at age 18 until we retired at age 75. I’ll do the math…We would have made $8,550,000 in our life. That is not bad, but lets say we stumbled upon something really crazy and made a consistent $250,000 per year for the same period. We would have made $14,250,000 for our life’s work. Now, keep in mind, that is with absolutely NO raise for the 57 years of work…Now, lets think about this, 100,000 people can work for $150,000, or 70,000 people for $250,000, for the 57 years and that would STILL not be $1 trillion.
The population of the United States is estimates at 305,982,756 at the time of this writing. The population of the world, at the same time, is 6,765,807,365. It would take more than 3,251 US populations, or 147 world populations, to get even close to 1 trillion people. Have you grasped what a trillion is yet?
Ok, lets look at something else. If we divided $1 trillion by the population of the United States, EACH person, that is each man, woman, and child, would receive $3,251. Now, THAT would stimulate the economy! Now let’s averaged by household, there are approximately 117,687,214 households in the US. That means that EACH household would receive more than $8,497. What could you do with that?
Let’s get social, shall we?
As of 2007, there were an estimated 671,859 homeless people in the United States. With $1 trillion, we could give EACH homeless person approximately $1,488,407!
According to I Care About Orphans, there is an estimated 127,000 children awaiting homes in the United States. With $1 trillion, we could give EACH child more than $7,874,000.
In 2006, it was estimated that there were 36,500,000 people in the US living in poverty. With $1 trillion, you could give EACH person living in poverty more than $26,000.
Are you grasping what $1 trillion is yet?
Or, in more abstract terms, a trillion grains of sand would weigh over 73 tons…it would take 62 days for light to travel a trillion miles…1 trillion dollar bills taped end to end it would stretch from Earth to the Sun at its farthest distance from the Sun.
Former Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee had some interesting figures. According to him, with $1 trillion, we could buy 1000 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies for every for every single person in the United States or we could put 8,000,000-plus students through a four-year Private College. Huckabee came up with this, but I did some re-figuring for more current estimates and according to the market values which appeared on Forbes for early Feb, 2009, with $1 trillion, we could actually purchase Microsoft ($168B), Walmart ($188B), Google ($107B), Coca-Cola ($100B), Pepsi Co ($80B), Apple, Inc ($83B), and Time Warner ($35B) and still have $243 Billion left over to purchase even more businesses!
Astounding? Do you get it yet? $1 trillion is $1,000,000,000,000, that is 1,000 billions. Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world according to Forbes, is worth $62 billion. That is not even CLOSE to $1 trillion! So, the next time our Elected Officials tell you they need anywhere near $1 trillion, please remember what $1 trillion is really worth!
http://www.takebackwashington.com/articles/GraspingATrillionDollars.html Endnotes:
Census
http://www.census.gov/ National Alliance to End Homelessness
http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/data/homelessmap I Care About Orphans
http://www.icareaboutorphans.org/?Menu=2 Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Declines, Number of Uninsured Up
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/010583.html If You had $1 Trillion
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?fa=News.View&News_id=5868487c-f4ac-411b-a1ca-9f97e886a95a The World’s Billionaires
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Warren-Buffett_C0R3.html Saw’s Saws
www.sawssaws.com
Graphic illustration of a Trillion:
http://www.kickthemallout.com/article.php/Story-What_Does_A_Trillion_Look_Like
Debbie Morgan
e-mail:
pressbox@bridgestonemediagroup.com
Homepage:
http://www.takebackwashington.com
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
a bit inaccurate
24.03.2009 22:51
As i understand it, there are debts that are worth approx $1 trillion but are riddled with toxic debts. They are trying to find private investors to buy these debts from the banks (this isn't actually unusally, most bad debts are sold to firms for a few pence in the pound becuase blue-chip companies don't want to be see harassing people who don't pay their debts).
The US treasury will kick off the programme with $75 billion to $100 billion from existing rescue funds.
They are not spending $1 trillion.
steff
Every day spending
25.03.2009 19:47
dp