Wednesday, January 05, 2011

What Does $1Trillion Look Like?

From the CD archives, originally posted on March 8, 2009

$1 million ($100 bills):

$1 trillion (notice the guy in the lower left hand corner):
Link. 

Featured today on Greg Mankiw's blog.

24 Comments:

At 1/05/2011 10:04 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

another way to look at it is this:

1 trillion seconds is around 32,000 years.

 
At 1/05/2011 11:13 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Well one of the cool things about the linked article was a link for Google SketchUP which seems like it could really be useful...

"1 trillion seconds is around 32,000 years"...

Or Here's what one second of national debt looks like

 
At 1/05/2011 11:31 AM, Blogger Ron H. said...

An example I read is that if you started loading $1 bills into a railroad freight car, then began filling another when that one was full, you would end up with a train 1000 miles long.

 
At 1/05/2011 11:47 AM, Blogger Jamie Waller said...

"A Trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon we're talking real money"

 
At 1/05/2011 12:15 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

According to the Congressional Budget Offie, the total costs of Iraqistan will be $3 trillion.

 
At 1/05/2011 12:18 PM, Blogger Junkyard_hawg1985 said...

And that doesn't cover our deficit for the past year!

 
At 1/05/2011 12:32 PM, Blogger Paul said...

How fitting to see this on the day Nancy Pelosi ends her disastrous rule.

When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi’s Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 – a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi’s four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.

 
At 1/05/2011 12:53 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"According to the Congressional Budget Offie, the total costs of Iraqistan will be $3 trillion"...

Got something credible back that statement up?

Yet there's a lot more extorted tax dollars going towards constitutionally questionable nanny state programs...

 
At 1/05/2011 1:08 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"When the Pelosi Democrats took control..."...

Is that the little ole swamp drainer Pelosi?

ROFLMAO!

Makes me wonder if Pelosi confused swamps (purposefully) with 'our wallets'?

 
At 1/05/2011 1:33 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Jaundos-

From Wikipedia--

"According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.[9][10]

Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, has stated the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be three trillion dollars in a moderate scenario, and possibly more in the most recent published study, published in March 2008.[11] Stiglitz has stated: "The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions...Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq."[11]

Remember, if you like the US military, you will love Onbamacare. Whenever a federal bureaucracy is in charge of anythng, costs soar to the moon.

BTW, since the CBO report, it was Obama who upped the ante in Afghanistan, and decided to waste a few hundred more billion dollars there, so the CBO figures could be low.

No, I do not think much of Obabam--although he is better than Bush jr.

 
At 1/05/2011 1:47 PM, Blogger juandos said...

pseudo benny I asked for a 'credible' source and you come up with 'wikipedia' the least credible source possible...

 
At 1/05/2011 2:07 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

The defense budget is just shy of 5 percent of GDP, and the cost of executing both the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan is about 15 percent of that 5 percent. Hardly a major cost relative to the overall budget or past conflicts. Further, all of these expenditures are constitutionally justified, as opposed to the graft that the Democrats lavish on their political cronies.

Notice how lefties, like "Benny", add in fixed costs (salaries, equipment maintenance and replacement, fuel, canteen, etc.) that the military would incur even in peacetime, as well as the interest expense out to some date convenient to their argument. Further, the interest expense is applied to the entire cost instead of being applied only to the percentage of federal spending financed through borrowing.

That they must stoop to these kinds of lies and distortions tells you all you need to know about who they are and the arguments they make.

 
At 1/05/2011 2:24 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

Shouldn't the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan be reduced by the costs associated with enforcing the UN embargo and manitaining the UN imposed "no-fly" zones? What about the increased potential for Iraqi oil production and the reduction of the risk premium on every barrel of Gulf oil following the ouster of Saddam Hussein? The huge potential of Afghanistan's newly discovered mineral wealth? The economic potential of the hundreds of thousands of children who were starved to death by Saddam under UN sanction, and who will now go on to be doctors, engineers and teachers? Or, the general increase in economic activity in Iraq and it's neighbors as a result of Saddams removal? Etc, etc. Or, is there only one side to the lefty ledger?

 
At 1/05/2011 2:58 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Che si Dead-
Actually, I am a libertarian, not a leftie.

I believe the Department of Defense, like the USDA or any other federal agency, is primarily characterized by ossified lard.

Our coprolitic Pentagon/VA/Department of State archipelago wastes 5 percent of our GDP every year. Parasites!

I always say, if you like the Department of Defense, then you are going to love Obamacare. The federal government in action--on the taxpayer dollar, and never a profit to make, or a competitor to take away your business.

Sweet and Fat, baby, sweet and fat.

 
At 1/05/2011 4:55 PM, Blogger Paul said...

"I always say, if you like the Department of Defense, then you are going to love Obamacare."

Benji loves Obamacare because it's named after his boyfriend, and also because he thinks he will benefit from it.

 
At 1/05/2011 4:57 PM, Blogger Paul said...

CHe,

"notice how lefties, like "Benny", add in fixed costs (salaries, equipment maintenance and replacement, fuel, canteen, etc.) that the military would incur even in peacetime, as well as the interest expense out to some date convenient to their argument."

I figured they were doing that. Thanks for fleshing it out.

 
At 1/05/2011 5:16 PM, Blogger Ron H. said...

"Actually, I am a libertarian, not a leftie."

ROFLMAO!

The laughs never stop with you, benji.

Libertarians don't say Bernanke is doing a fine job, and they don't call for the Fed to print money. In fact, most libertarians don't think the Fed should even exist. You may want to check some definitions @ Wikipedia, your favorite source for accurate information.

 
At 1/05/2011 5:44 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Ron H.
I said I was a libertarian, not an idiot.
Of course we need an agency to print acceptable currency. It facilitates trade.

Try reading Scott Sumner's The Money Illusion blog for a year or so. It is a great read, and the best monetary blog going. He is a practical libertarian too.

Best of investing to you in 2011 Ron H. I hope you strike the Mother Lode!

I see 13,000 on he Dow this year. The Bush Jr. Recession is deader than Jimmy Hoffa.

 
At 1/05/2011 6:49 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"I said I was a libertarian, not an idiot"...

Well pseudo benny when you make inane and factless comments like this: "The Bush Jr. Recession is deader than Jimmy Hoffa" how else can one think of you?

Also who uses wikipedia as a 'credible' source?

 
At 1/05/2011 6:57 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Juandos-

I was not using Wikpedia as a source. I was using a Wikipedia page to direct you to a study by the Congressional Budget Office, that pegs the cost of the Iraqistan Follies at $3 trillion and counting.

Hey, it's your money they are blowing over there.

We have set up the world's leading narco-state in Afghanie, so maybe we can get some of our money back....

 
At 1/05/2011 7:40 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Hey, it's your money they are blowing over there"...

Apparently your grasp of the Constitution is still nil...

The feds are blowing considerably more extorted tax dollars on all those constitutionally questionable 'nanny state' programs and yet that doesn't seem to make a dent in your ability to repeat your factless mantras...

"We have set up the world's leading narco-state in Afghanie, so maybe we can get some of our money back"...

Did you source that bit of wisdom from wikipedia also?

 
At 1/05/2011 8:16 PM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

I think Wikipedia is generally a credible source, especially as a secondary source of links to primary sources.

 
At 1/05/2011 8:27 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"I think Wikipedia is generally a credible source, especially as a secondary source of links to primary sources"...

Well personally I've found far to many errors in history, climate science, and chemistry just to name a few to consider wikipedia as anything but some folks' sloppy hobby...

 
At 1/05/2011 9:02 PM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

It's a collaborative effort, you should make corrections to improve the accuracy of Wikipedia, instead of complaining. It's the best reference resource available, and I almost always start there.

 

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