WHAT IS A TRILLION DOLLARS?

I am reading the book America For Sale. It is very interesting, eye opening and I am only on page 29. We are now starting to talk trillions of dollars when we talk federal budget. What is a trillion dollars? A trillion is a 1 with 12 zeros after it. Here are some comparisons from the book;

-If you had gone into business on the day Jesus was born, and your business lost a million dollars a day, day in and day out, 365 days a year, it would take you until October 2737 to lose $1trillion.

-If you spend $1 million a day every day since Jesus was born, you would still be only slightly more than three-quarters of the way to spending $1 trillion.

-One trillion dollars divided by 300 million Americans comes out to $3,333 per person.

-One trillion one-dollar bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles into the sky, about a third of the way from the earth to the moon.

-Earth’s home galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to contain about 200 billion stars; so, if each star cost one dollar, $1 trillion would buy five Milky Way galaxies full of stars.

-One trillion seconds of ordinary clock time equals 31,546 years. So, spending money at the rate of one dollar every second, or $86,400 every day, a spending spree would still take nearly 32,000 years to reach $1 trillion.

-If someone were to build city blocks that contained ten homes valued at $100,000 per home, you would end up with ten houses to a block, ten blocks to a mile, and a hundred blocks per square mile. It would take 10,000 square miles to reach $1 trillion in value. This would be more than six of our states: Vermont, 9,615 square miles; New Hampshire, 9,351 square miles; New Jersey, 8,722 square miles; Connecticut, 5,544 square miles; Delaware, 1,954 square miles; and Rhode Island, 1,545 square miles.

According to the national debt clock today the national debt is 12 trillion, so take all the above and multiply by 12 to get a handle on how much the government is in debt. And we are going to have a 1.4 trillion deficit this year. Right now every citizen in the US, their share of the national debt is over $34,000.

When are we going to get the House and Senate to stop spending? The above figures do not count the Healthcare Bill or Cap and Trade. If you listen closely, the Senate’s healthcare bill collects taxes for 5 years then starts paying benefits the last 5 years of the 10 years the costs are projected. It is reported that if you look at 12 months of full funding and benefits it is $2 trillion a year. Does anyone really think we can keep this up?

According to the National Debt Clock, unfunded debt; Social Security, Prescription Drugs and Medicare equal $106.3 trillion dollars or $345,185 per US Citizen. I don’t think we can raise taxes enough to pay the Federal Government’s bills.

Page 29 of America For Sale states Craig Smith, founder and CEO of Swiss America Trading Corporation, has estimated it would take approximately four generations of Americans to pay of the interest of the U.S. Treasury bonds sold as debt to create $1trillion, factoring in a 3 % growth rate in the economy.

I don’t know about you, but this is mind boggling! It is hard to comprehend just how much in debt we are and the House and Senate keep spending more. There are reports of the House looking at another stimulus to create jobs!

We must call/write/email our House and Senate Representatives and demand they stop spending! They are running our country into the ground! Could any business run like this and keep their doors open? I think not. They must know we will hold them accountable next election! They work for us, not special interests or themselves.

What do you think?