Unbelievable. "I don't know what a trillion is"

[Career Prole]

After all, how much is a trillion?

It's the number one followed by 12 zeros. But that doesn't shed much light on just how deeply in debt the federal government is that it must pass a law enabling it to borrow up to $8.965 trillion.

"It's hard to understand what a trillion is. I don't know what it is," confessed Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, this week when debating the government's staggering fiscal obligations.

Reuters

:wtf:

That's staggering to me. That's the damned Budget Committee Chairman speaking!

He doesn't "know" what a trillion is.

Well, that certainly goes without speaking although it's nice that he confirmed it.
Still, he and the other "conservatives" just increased the federal debt ceiling to $9 TRILLION and at this moment are about to railroad through a proposed FY2007 budget of $2.7 TRILLION.

These people don't represent us. They're an embarrassment.

Flush that damned thing. It's starting to draw flies.

[katty]

1. Ask the Bush Family-they do

[Esra Star]

106. conceptualising $9,000,000,000,000........

If you create a pile of American dollar notes, one million would be
a couple of feet high.(I don't know the exact height)
One billion dollars would be taller than the Empire State Building.
One trillion will get up into outer space.
Nine trillion would be a traffic hazard for the space station.
Holy shit!

[Fenris]

2. Wow. What middle school kid

Couldn't tell you that 1,000,000,000,000 = 1000 x 1,000,000,000?

[TaleWgnDg]

95. Oh, lighten up . . . !!

.
As much as Judd Gregg (R, NH) is a complete ass, the guy, here, is only attempting to be facetious. That is, tongue-in-cheek unable to wrap his mind around such a large number as "trillion." In other words, Gregg was attempting to make light humor where humor truly doesn't belong, i.e., pushing more than $36,000 Republican debt onto every person including our children across America! Why didn't someone pick up on that?


Happy Saint Patty's Day to you, too!!

.

[AndyA]

3. Irresponsible

Fiscal suicide is what a trillion dollars debt is. Multiply that by 9, and you've got it.

These people aren't conservatives, they're wasteful. They don't even try to save money, they just keep spending it. Shameful!

[never_get_over_it]

54. Don't think they are as wasteful as they are greedy

alot of them and alot of their friends have made tons and tons of money on this spending....they make me sick. Do you know that they are saying that the Iraq will cost us at least a trillion dollars. Now let me see if I have this right I think a trillion is a million million do you know what could be done to build this country up with a million million dollars - and what did we spend it on destroying another country and making all the fat cat war mongers VERY VERY VERY VERY RICH.

[Lowrey]

72. 10% of National Economy.

This is a none issue. Our economy is projected to be 12 to 14 trillion dollars this year. 1 trillion debt ceiling is less than 10%. How many Americans borrow less than 10% of their net worth!

[Lowrey]

73. MY BAD

Damn I thought they raised it to 1 trillion not 10! That is a quite frightning!

[Lochloosa]

75. I have listened to the bullshit argument for to long.

Saying that this deficit is a none(sic)issue is burying your head in the sand.

What good could we do with just the interest we pay on this nonissue?
Better health coverage? A "real" drug coverage plan for our elderly?
God forbid we have any money for "social" issues.

[proud2BlibKansan]

100. So the fact that a politician working on this budget

doesn't know what a trillion is - that is a non issue to you?

Not to me.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. I think he was saying he cannot

conceptualize a trillion. I can't, either.

[Nutmegger]

5. I was just going to say the same thing

I don't think anyone can comprehend this massive amount of money.

[pscot]

10. As Everett Dirksen famously noted

"A billion here and a billion there; pretty soon you're talking about real money."

[Career Prole]

12. From the article, an aid...

So he conjured up a spending spree, something Americans might be able to relate to. "If you spent a million dollars a day for a million days (2,739 years)," you'd hit $1 trillion, Nolan observed.

To spend $1 trillion in the average American life span of 77 years, you'd have to be on a lifetime spending spree of about $35,580,857 and change every day from birth.

Does that help? :)

[magellan]

17. New reality tv show idea - "Spend a Trillion!"

Whereby we try to prove whether or not it's humanly possible for one person to spend $35 million a day, every day, over the course of their lifetime.

I volunteer to be the first contestant. I can make up for lost time by donating $550 billion to charities around the world.

[Career Prole]

26. Me next! Me next!

If I gave away all but a grand a day I'd still have more than I'd know what to do with, I think.

It'd probably all come to a bad end. :evilgrin:

[mwooldri]

35. TV show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" renamed....

.... since everyone could be a millionaire after all this happens. Evidence? Speak to the people in Turkey. They had to re-value their currency for it to make any sense - there were too many zeroes, they changed it some time back so that 1 million Turkish Lire equaled one new lire.

so "Who Wants to be a Trillionaire", anyone?

Mark

[centristo]

38. that's the plot for "Brewster's Trillions"

he has to spend a million dollars in a million days in order to inherit 20 gazillion dollars. Sadly, Richard Pryor died before they began filming.

[jbnow]

59. My God, if that's true

I didn't know what a trillion was either.

I did numerically of course...but looking at it with those examples...I didn't know a trillion.

[wordpix2]

66. & there are a relatively few enriching themselves with that $: Bushes,

Baker Botts, Cheneys, Big Oil, Carlyle Group, Halliburton-KBR...the same names keep popping up over and over.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Well, I can.

I can conceptualize a million. Just visualze what can be done with a million. A million can build a McMansion. 20 million can build a school.

A billion is a thousand million. 50 schools.

A trillion is a million million. 50,000 schools.

Doesn't seem so hard to me.

[napi21]

20. I think you're right, and I'd say very few people can grasp what

a TRILLION really is. Not just how to write out the number, but something they can relate it to.

It's 200,000 homes worth $500,000 each!

It would take someone earning $100,000 a year, One HUNDRED MILLION YEARS to earn that much...BEFORE TAXES!

[EOTE]

91. Actually, it's 2 MILLION homes at that price.

Think of the poverty and homelessness that we suffer in this country. That's 5 million homes at a more reasonable 200 grand. Or, we can give it to KBR's and Haliburton's CEOs so that they can buy more golden bulls and Lear Jets. Either way.

[rman]

25. It's $150 for every living soul on the planet

($1000 billion divided by 6.6 billion people)

[Tesha]

50. Sure you can (conceptualize it). $9T is about $33,000...

Sure you can (conceptualize it). $9T is about $33,000 for every
man, woman, and child in this nation.

Does that help? ;-)

Tesha

[dave123williams]

80. Sure you can...it's simple...

One million is a thousand dollars, a thousand times.
One billion is a million dollars, a thousand times.
One trillion is a billion dollars, a thousand times.

[TaleWgnDg]

96. exactly . . . move on, there's nothing else to it!!

[Inland]

97. If you can't grasp it, you probably shouldn't borrow it.

It's kinda tough to justify borrowing an amount of money that is too big for the imagination. How can you say that any particular task is worth borrowing more money than we can even conceptualize?

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. In his defense, I'm sure he knows what a trillion is - I think he is only

saying that he doesn't *understand* what a trillion is. None of us do. There is nothing in our experience that allows to comprehend/understand numbers that large. We can use them, yes; understand them, not so much.

[Career Prole]

14. Understood, Rabrrrrrr.

Seems like a ridiculous admission to make before asking for that much, though. I'm glad he said it. It belongs in an ad. ;)

[rkc3]

7. After this latest debt ceiling increase - bush will want to raise it

to $10 brazillion.

Really though, once you start hitting these numbers who cares how high it gets. Like a crack addict who gets on his knees for the next hit - once you go down that road, there's no turning back.

[KansDem]

47. A little off topic, but your post reminded me of this joke...

Donald Rumsfeld gave the president his daily briefing.
He concluded by saying: "Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"Oh no!" the president exclaimed. "That's terrible!"
His staff was stunned at this display of emotion,
nervously watching as the president sat,
his head in his hands.
Finally, the president looked up and asked,
"Exactly how many is a brazillion?"

[rucky]

8. He's doing a heckova job! n/t

[Career Prole]

23. He makes a good bookend for a commander-in-chief

who doesn't know diddly-squat about war.

[KamaAina]

9. Silly Judd. A trillion is one-tenth of a brazillion.

Wait a minute. Isn't Gregg the guy who won the Powerball lottery a while back? Hmmm... I think I may have a bridge I'd like to show him...

[Warpy]

11. I like to explain it this way:

A rich man married a beautiful young trophy wife. The only fly in the ointment was that she insisted her mother live with them. Not wanting to destroy what he had with his new young wife, he decided to get rid of her mother by sending her shopping with a budget of a thousand dollars a day.

At that rate, he'd have mom gone for nearly three years for a million dollars.

For a billion dollars, he'd get rid of her for three thousand years.

For a trillion dollars, he'd lose her for three million years, and that is how long it's been since monkeys first started to walk upright and bang two rocks together as tools.

[Career Prole]

19. Oooooh! That's excellent!

You should e-mail that to the esteemed budget committee chair.
:rofl:

[klook]

36. That's good, but your science is off

It was only 5,000 years ago that cavemen rode on the backs of dinosaurs!

[Greyhound]

69. ROTFLMAO!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Der Blaue Engel]

90. Heretic!

Everyone knows there were no such thing as dinosaurs! The bones were placed there by Satan to confound us!

[serryjw]

78. You ROCK!...Being sent to everyone

n/t

[Richard D]

13. There's . . .

. . . a million seconds in about two weeks, a billion seconds in about 32 years, and a trillion seconds in about 32,000 years.

A stack of 100 dollar bills 77 miles high.

(disclaimer - I'm not good with numbers, so please correct me if I'm wrong).


(on edit, added 100)

[BlueEyedSon]

15. It's only $30k for every man woman & child in the US.

[sheelz]

21. That's $30,000 if we all paid up now.

Don't forget to add interest over time.

[chaplainM]

22. I might be good for the $30,000 Mr. Bush put on my bill

...but my 15 year-old had better start looking for work.

[BlueEyedSon]

24. LOL!

[sakabatou]

18. Give the Chairman a medal of freedom!

[gilpo]

27. When I was a kid in the late 70's early 80's

we used to have a similar discussion about a billion. I guess a trillion is the new billion.

Maybe this will help... it is $36,000.00 for every man, woman and child in the US. My family's portion is $144,000.

[Career Prole]

29. Same here...and I'm afraid I'm gonna have to stiff 'em.

Heck, the service wasn't that great anyway. :eyes:

Hey...welcome to DU! :hi:

[gilpo]

45. Thanks

And yur right, the service sucks!

[ooglymoogly]

28. a trillion is a synonym for inflation.

[oneighty]

30. A light year is 6 trillion miles

Light travels about 186,000 miles/dollars per second.

Nine trillion miles is one and one half the distance light travels in an Earth year. 279,000 miles/dollars a second.

Time is relevant to the beholder. So are dollars.

Damn that is hard to believe.

Am I wrong?

180

[Gregorian]

41. You and I are on the same wavelength. No pun intended.

The first thing I thought of was light speed.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Furthermore, comparing it to the number of people on the planet is not useful since I don't think people really get the situation we are in with respect to population. But the light year thing just blows me away.

I'm sitting here laughing. What else can one do? I guess we can all think about Avogadro's number, and that will put this all to rest. Phew. Thanks Avogadro! :)

[oneighty]

43. It is mind bending

Of course we cannot conceive of such quantities. At least I cannot.

Avogadro? Viscosity? Space between molecules?

180

[LunaC]

31. Putting it in perspective

(From an email I received)

Don't even think about "Trillions"...

The next time you hear someone in the government use the word "billion," casually, think about this:

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend. One advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. A billion days ago no-one walked on two feet on earth.

And a billion dollars lasts 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government spends it.

(From http://www.punahou.edu/acad/sanders/geometrypages/GP10BillionEtc.html)

A billion, in America, is a thousand million. That would be written 1,000,000,000.

To make a book with a billion dollar signs, printed 1000 per page as before, our book would be 1,000,000 pages long, and would be 2,000,000 inches thick! There are 12 inches in a foot, and 5,280 feet in a mile, so dividing 2,000,000 by 12 to convert the inches to feet, and then dividing that by 5,280 to convert the feet to miles, our book would be 166 feet 8 inches thick!

If a billion kids made a human tower, they would stand up past the moon. If you sat down to count from one to one billion, you would be counting for 95 years. If you found a goldfish bowl large enough hold a billion goldfish, it would be as big as a stadium."

So how much is a trillion? A trillion, in America, is a thousand billion!!

[Career Prole]

34. "A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age"

And if the repukes have their way whether it be through nuclear war, peak oil, or plain ol' regression we're about a billion seconds from being back in the Stone Age.
Damn the yabba-dabba-dorks.

[A Simple Game]

32. What's the big deal?

We only need 9 of them, it's not like we are talking about billions and billions of something!

[LifeDuringWartime]

55. wow

i really hope nobody tries to seriously make that case!

[A Simple Game]

56. Oh No!

Now that you mention it, it wouldn't surprise me.

[imouttahere]

105. Just had to comment on your sig photo, LifeDuringWartime....

Trout Mask Replica is one of the all-time great albums! How many times did you have to listen to it before you "got it"?

The album cover scared the shit out of me when I was little.

[EOTE]

93. Great Carl Sagan's ghost! n/t

[question everything]

33. He needs it to be explained at sixth grade level

with very few syllables, in the format of "Me Tarzan, You Jane."

When his commander in chief sound like a moron, oops, moran, why should anyone else even try to appear semi intelligent? After all, at least in the corporate world, one is expected to show one's boss in a favorable light, not to embarrass him/her.

[tritsofme]

37. Remember what Reagan told us in 1980

That our (gasp) $1 trillion debt if stacked in a single pile of $100 bills would reach all the way to the moon.

He then proceeded to make his stack go to Mars.

[Initech]

39. It's all the way up to Saturn's moons at this point!

[Skidmore]

40. I just e-mailed my senator

--Harkin--and requested that he ask Gregg how he could support such an increase in the debt ceiling when he could imagine $1T. We'll wait for a response.

[Gregorian]

42. Laid end to end, one trillion dollars is 97 million miles!

That is the distance from the earth to the sun.

[bmbmd]

44. Trillion?

Wasn't she Arthur Dent's girlfriend???

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. I do, I do! It's 1/9th of the national debt! Do I get a prize?

[RazzleDazzle]

48. Isn't like impossible to be RESPONSIBLE about something

you know freaking nothing about???

What was that about putting "the adults" in charge?

[soothsayer]

49. The pentagon is missing $2.3 TRILLION with $7 TRILLION in

accounting mistakes!

Under Rummy, btw.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/03-00/03-04-00/a10wn061.htm

[enid602]

51. trillion

Unfortunately, few Americans know what a trillion is. What we call one billion is actually one 'mil million' (one thousand million in English) in Latin America, and I believe the rest of the world goes by this as well. What we call a trillion is actually a billion in the rest of the world.

[Leopolds Ghost]

52. SEND THIS TO THE TALK SHOWS -- Leno, etc. in time for Friday n/t

[Career Prole]

53. To put Gregg's confession of his inability to comprehend

the size of a trillion in its proper perspective imagine Mr. Haney, itinerant peddler of Hooterville and its environs...



...brings you back, doesn't it? :)

Now imagine Mr. Haney stepping into the bank and hooking his thumbs through his suspenders (I believe that's "braces for my British friends) and asking the loan officer for "a million dollars 'r thereabouts" to expand his business to three trucks with pots and pans clangily hanging off the sides.

The banker asks "Sir, do you have any idea how much money that is?"

Mr. Haney replies "Wellll, no! Whyn't you explain it to me whilst I sign fer it?"

:wtf: (banker smiley)

The American taxpayer/consumer is that banker. The GOP is Mr. Haney.

Gregg's admission should be widely circulated in Democratic campaigns this year, no?

[Festivito]

57. Know what a $10 movie ticket is? Well, 1T$=about 300-400 movies.

The yearly fed spending: 2.7T$ is your trade for about two movies a day, every day for a year,... with a popcorn and soda.
In trade for not going to this many movies you get prisons, supposed justice, police/military, possible help, and some watchdogging.

Each three-BILLION in the budget is one ten-dollar movie.
I hope you find each such trade in the budget as worth the movie.

We get a bonus: Everyday we watch our movie's worth at noon, six and eleven on TV.

Think about what each item in the budget is costing you in terms of the alternative: movie watching.
Some are worth it.
Some are tolerable, since other people want them.
Some are not worth it.

But, you should understand what a trillion, or a billion means to you.

[Career Prole]

58. It's not so much what it means to me...I wish it was.

It's what it means to my kids...my grandkids. Hell, probably my great-grandkids.
They'll be stuck with this debt for their entire working lives.
I always had hoped to leave them a better world than was left to me.

[Festivito]

68. And , that is what it means to you.

We are the parents still owing mortgage payments on the house, and yet, we retire or die.
NO INSURANCE to cover the debt.
We've angered the neighbors and once-upon-a-time friends.

Our 9T$ debt, IF paid consistantly (which we won't be able) over 30 years IS MORE THAN 20T$ of payments.
And this does not include the SS shortfall at about the time we've paid the mortgage, if we're lucky.

ASSUMING we'd have surplus of 60-70 billion each year instead of deficits of 500-700 billion each year.
Yeah, right. :sarcasm:

Three movies a week taken from the children.
We shouldn't call ourselves doting.

And, that's what is should mean to you.

[Swamp Rat]

60. Why are they called "Republicans" anymore?

:shrug:

[Greyhound]

71. I have a theory that the Republican Party was seized by the

Corporate Party in the 80's, and now the Democratic Party is falling ot the same fate, driven by the Democratic Wing of the Corporate Party, represented by the DLC.

"It's a (class) war, damn it, we're going to have to offend somebody!"

[Ganja Ninja]

61. He'd know what a trillion was if it were being spent on health care

or welfare or education or environmental restoration.

[Deep13]

62. Refresher course for Congressmen who flunked remedial math.

MILLION = one thousand thousand or 1000 groups of 1000 each. A million bucks in $20 bills can fit on a kitchen table.

BILLION = one thousand million. A billion dollars would have trouble fitting in a middle class house.

TRILLION = a million million, a million groups of a million each.

[Cobalt Violet]

63. It's suppose to be a repuke talking point.

For their dumbass base.

[JPZenger]

64. 28 Eiffel Towers Made of Gold

Rachel Maddow today quoted the Times of London as saying that the US Debt is equivalent to 28 full sized Eiffel Towers made of gold.

[IronLionZion]

65. $1 trillion will make a lot of wealth for corrupt robber barons

It's sickening to think about how much of that money is just going into no-bid contracts, overcharging by unscrupulous contractors, tax evasion, or just interest on foreign debt. According to TIME, The lost revenue from tax evasion each year is a lot more than our annual budget deficit.

You want something you can't understand? The level of corruption in our federal government is so huge and so erratic that it can't make sense to anyone. It's not organized. Nobody knows how much or exactly who is involved except that it is ridiculously. Just trying to add up the amount will have blood shooting out of your nose.

Here's the tip of the iceberg: www.taxpayer.net

[wordpix2]

67. another incompetent who should be kicked out on his ass, but BushCo loves

incompetent morons to carry out the PNAC plan

[savemefromdumbya]

70. WHY IS THIS IDIOT CHAIRING THE COMMITTEE!!!!!!!

can the people sue the Congressional branch for incompetence

[AllieB]

74. I can't believe NH keeps re-electing this moron

:eyes:

[oc2002]

76. Our whole economy is like a House of cards, only takes on creditor to blow

..
it down, and China might just do that.

[CrispyQ]

77. One Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000

How long would it take to count to this number from 0 -- one count per second, night & day? 32,000 years!

Nine trillion would take 288,000 years!

[Clarkie1]

83. A million millions = A trillion. n/t

[Virginia Dare]

79. Any Federal employee or retiree who thinks their pension is safe..

is kidding themselves. They're already raiding it.

[Trevelyan]

81. HalliburtonWatch and Know Your War Profiteers and IMPEACHMENT

Go to Sites: HalliburtonWatch and Know Your War Profiteers for playing cards with Kissenger/Condi Ect. War Criminals
http://www.warprofiteers.com http://www.ruckus.org

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/

Sign Congressman Conyers' Citizen Co-Sponsor Letter to begin Impeachment Inquiry in the House of Representatives into Bush's crimes against the American people:
http://www.johnconyers.com Conyer's Action Items

Sign Senator Feingold's petition to CENSURE Bush for his crimes against the American people:
http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com/

Go to http://www.ImpeachPac.com for more information.

[Clarkie1]

82. We should run ads with this quote to help take back the congress.

We ought to be making fiscal responsibility a big issue in 06', it could really help us win back the House and Senate if we get serious about the issue.

A billion is one thousand millions

A trillion is one thousand billions.

Therefore, a trillion is a million millions.

[Career Prole]

85. Exactly right. You're a winner!

:D
I'm using the quote in a LTTE I'm writing just now in which I will point out to this very conservative city that the republican budget committee chairman made the quote before voting 'yes' not once, but twice on multi-trillion dollar issues (raising the debt-ceiling and the budget proposal). These folks, I figure, would want to know that the man has no sense of a trillion. I'd figure a quote like that would precede a 'no' vote and I'm betting they feel the same way.
:evilgrin:

[SammyWinstonJack]

84. Hehehe.

"It must be a deficit, it has a lot of zeros in it" :crazy:

[emdee]

86. Spending a million dollars a day for a million days = a trillion.

You're right, they are an embarrassment!
emdee

[Career Prole]

87. My LTTE today for my Texas neighbors...

"It's hard to understand what a trillion is. I don't know what it is."
This confession was made by none other than Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH), this week when debating raising the federal debt level for the fourth time in the G.W. Bush Era.
One would reasonably expect such an admission to precede a 'no' vote on the measure raising the ceiling to nearly $9 trillion, but it didn’t.
Gregg and nearly all the other Republicans voted 'yes'.

Then to show that they not only don't understand the size of a trillion, but that they just don't care about it they voted 'yes' to a $2.7 trillion budget proposal for FY2007, again along party lines with Dick Cheney lurking in the wings in case of a tie.

I think our Republican congress should write on the blackboard "A trillion is too much money!" a trillion times.
Perhaps then they'd get it.

On an interesting side note, a Democratic amendment to the measure raising the debt ceiling which simply requested to commission a study on the implications of that much foreign debt was defeated by a straight party-line vote. Why?

In the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, Senator Gregg, if you wanted to spend just one trillion dollars you'd need to start spending over $35.5 million per day on the day you were born and continue spending that amount until age 77. I hope that helps you the next time the subject comes up.

[gmoney]

88. Anyone else remember that book "One Million"?

Basically, it was a book that had a million small dots printed in it. I believe it was 100 pages of 100x100 dot grids... there were little callouts in the margin for some of the numbers. The idea was to give some perspective as to what a million was. This came out in the 70s when millions were still pretty big numbers in terms of money, population, computing power, etc. I think there's a new kids book version of it out now.

So a trillion is simply a MILLION of those books. Ugh...

[sutz12]

89. Yeah, a billion here, a billion there.....

pretty soon you're talking real money. :sarcasm:

[AdamJKarp]

92. A lot of people seem to be minimizing what a trillion is...

See if this helps.

1 million seconds is 11 and 1/2 days. 1 billion seconds is 32 years. 1 trillion seconds is more than modern mankind has been on the planet.

[Career Prole]

98. And welcome to DU, AdamJKarp!

:toast: :hi:
Glad you're here!

[gilpo]

101. Welcome!

Excellent post!

[Rex]

94. Spend and spend Repukers.

They belong to the culture of destruction. Alway inflicting pain and suffering on those who surround them. Senator Judd sounds like a typical moran.

[Q3JR4]

99. Some numbers for ya all, please correct me if I'm wrong....

According to the federal guidlines (what I could find), a dollar bill is roughly the same thickness as a $100 bill around .004882 inches. Assuming that we use the 8.965 trillion dollars given by this post, we can figure that (for $100 bills stacked on top of each other) you'd have a stack 69796.9 miles high. With $1s, you'd have a stack roughly 6907690 miles. In the case of the $100 stack, it would strech 1/3 the distance from the earth to the moon. In the case of a pile of 1s, we could stretch it from the earth to the moon and back 14.45 times.

$8.965 trillion is a rather LARGE number.

People who can't begin to work with large numbers suck ass (unless this post is wrong in which case I withdraw the last comment I just made. :) ).

[DuaneBidoux]

102. Republicans: Cutting your taxes, raising your grandkid's

[drkedjr]

103. Judd Gregg (R-NH)

Judd grew up in a multi-millionare New Hampshire family and avoided Viet Nam due to "acute acne." I'm sure simple searches will reveal much more on this repug kiss ass ...

[mwooldri]

104. I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the B word yet. No, not billion...

but Brazillion. Sorry... I just had to say it since it's an old joke and since if this guy doesn't know what a trillion is, maybe he can tell Georgie what a brazillion is.

[Marie26]

107. $9,000,000,000,000 dollar debt

I think they should have to always write it that way, so people can understand just how big a trillion is.

[kestrel91316]

108. Jesus wept. What a waste of good air.

[Crunchy Frog]

109. Is it more, or less, than a Brazilian? n/t

[Octafish]

110. A trillion would change the world.

Imagine what it would do for America?

BTW: Interest on the national debt of $9 trillion dollars is about $352 billion a year.

That alone would change America.

SOURCE: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdint.htm