Big numbers are difficult to grasp…and here is an exercise to demonstrate this fact. For those of you who know me then you have probably been through this before – sorry, in advance.
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Question 1: If you had exactly a million dollars and spent a dollar a second, how long would it take for you to spend the whole million?
Answer: Approximately 11 days.
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Question 2: If you had exactly a billion dollars and spent a dollar a second, how long would it take for you to spend the whole billion?
Answer: Approximately 31.7 years!
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Question 3: If you had exactly a trillion dollars and spend a dollar a second, how long would it take for you to spend the whole trillion?
Answer: Approximately 31,688 years!!
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So as an investor, when you hear about the U.S. Federal Government’s deficit is in the trillions of dollars, just know that is a hell of a lot of money. Also know that future generations of Americans owe that money to the creditors who have lent our country the money and that is a hell of a burden. Yikes!
So as an investor, when you hear about an emergency financial bailout package that is budgeted to cost $700 billion, just know that it will take ~ 22,181 years of a dollar being spent every second to payback those bailout monies. Yikes!
Sorry, I don’t mean to be depressing. Just know that a billion is a lot more than a million and that a trillion is…geez…even more!
Jason
Well sure, but our government has the solution! which is to spend it ALL in one shot and call it a bailout! Hows that for productivity? Think of the time saved that can be used for spending even greater sums?
Hah! That’s truly funny!