The papers have abounded with big numbers. The bail out - $700 billion dollars, the deficit - $1.2 trillion dollars, Madoff uses a Ponzi scheme to rip off investors of $50 billion dollars.
Million, Billion, Trillion
The only difference between the words is one letter and sometimes people get those things confused. I think there should be a law of big numbers so people really understand the difference between a million, and a billion, and a trillion. Everett Dirksen once said, “a million here, a million there, pretty soon we’re talking big numbers.”
Being a math guy, I like to explain it like this:
If you were going to count to a Million, and you counted one count per second, it would take you a little bit over eleven and one half days of counting non-stop.
Now lets go to a Billion, mostly when I ask people this, they usually guess 100 days. Well actually, to count to a billion, would take you 31 years and 8 ½ months. Remember, a billion is a thousand millions.
Then we can talk about a Trillion. How long would it take to count to a trillion? Do the math. Again you move the decimal point but it would take you 31,709 years plus 8 months to count to a trillion.
Another way I like to explain this is if you started a business the day Jesus was born, and your business worked non-stop seven days a week, you and your business made a million dollars a day and there were no taxes, how much money would you have? You would not even have a trillion dollars; you would only have $732,920,000,000. That’s about $733 billion for those of you that have problems with too many zeros. That was our first bail out amount and now they're talking even more.
Million, Billion, Trillion
The only difference between the words is one letter and sometimes people get those things confused. I think there should be a law of big numbers so people really understand the difference between a million, and a billion, and a trillion. Everett Dirksen once said, “a million here, a million there, pretty soon we’re talking big numbers.”
Being a math guy, I like to explain it like this:
If you were going to count to a Million, and you counted one count per second, it would take you a little bit over eleven and one half days of counting non-stop.
Now lets go to a Billion, mostly when I ask people this, they usually guess 100 days. Well actually, to count to a billion, would take you 31 years and 8 ½ months. Remember, a billion is a thousand millions.
Then we can talk about a Trillion. How long would it take to count to a trillion? Do the math. Again you move the decimal point but it would take you 31,709 years plus 8 months to count to a trillion.
Another way I like to explain this is if you started a business the day Jesus was born, and your business worked non-stop seven days a week, you and your business made a million dollars a day and there were no taxes, how much money would you have? You would not even have a trillion dollars; you would only have $732,920,000,000. That’s about $733 billion for those of you that have problems with too many zeros. That was our first bail out amount and now they're talking even more.
Larry Kopsa CPA
