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Cool Beans: What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
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5.0 (1) |
I'm not sure who created this (it's one of those things that's bouncing back and forth around the Internet), but it's a jolly interesting way of visualizing what it would look like to stand next to a trillion dollars in 100 dollar bills...
What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"...
A billion dollars...
A hundred billion dollars...
Eight hundred billion dollars...
One TRILLION dollars...
But what does that actually look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.
We'll start with a $100 dollar bill, which is currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them; slightly fewer have owned them; and they are guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.
A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for 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 looked 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 we'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.
Are you ready for this? It's pretty surprising. Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 trillion dollars...
(And notice that those pallets are double stacked.)
So the next time you hear a politician toss around the phrase "trillion dollars" with regards to spending your hard-earned tax dollars ... that's what they're talking about!
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
A million here, a million there, what's a trillion between friends?
| Overall: | 5.0 |
Max,
Nice job! Once, long ago, I worked with a class of third graders. The teacher wanted to make the concept of a billion (!) more concrete for the kids. So I suggested collecting pop tops (that should gove a clue as to how long ago this was.) The kids worked for months collecting pop tops. They got 100,000 tops together. It was a far cry from one billion. But by measuring homw much space the tops took they figured out that a billion took a whole bunch of classrooms.
I shudder to think about collecting a trillion...
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