Exercise in Financial Futility: Imagine $5 Trillion in Bills

In the very near future, a new word must be widely publicized bringing us up to speed after the word “trillion.” I read a headline last week about the U.S. government’s assumption of the mortgage makers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for a reported $5 trillion.
Unfortunately, I was halfway through my morning regimen of a half-cup of oatmeal with a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon and splash of 2-percent fat milk, so such massive amounts did not resonate at that early hour.
That’s a lot of money, I guess, but just HOW much?
For quick reference, I entered “trillion” in my search engine and out popped a copyright article by Jim Loy, who obviously spent more time figuring out zeros after big numbers than more politicians who spend all that loot.
For the unwashed masses, trillion is the fourth big number: thousand, million, billion (that’s 1,000 million), and then trillion.
A trillion has 12 zeros. Social Security numbers have but 10. The next whopper number after trillion is quadrillion, (1,000 billion).
At the rate the U.S government is spending, we had better get a grasp of what that next one is, but that’s for another day.
Since humble folks understand pennies better than dollars, I will pass along information, from another Internet resource, The Megapenny Project.
Think of a football field as in Memorial Field, Court House, Maxwell Field, Wildwood or any other gridiron. A cube containing 1 trillion pennies would dwarf that football field in height and width. It would be valued at $10,000,000,016,640. In words that’s 10 billion, one hundred sixty six dollars and 40 cents.
That stack of pennies would be 273 feet high, wide and deep, would weigh 3,125,000 tons, and, if stacked, would stretch 986,426 miles.
That’s for “just” one trillion pennies, not dollars, as is being paid out to stabilize the steadfast mortgage companies.
Once that image in your mind, swap a dollar (bill or coin) for each penny, and that’s $1 trillion.
The reader may begin to understand how, on a breakfast bowl of oatmeal, such mind-boggling sums just don’t translate very well.
For ordinary wage earners, a three-figure salary is normal for a week’s work, yet those are the hard-working class members who chip in to make spending $5 trillion possible.
Perhaps part of our national demise is that we are bombarded with figures we cannot (or dare not) understand. To hear it said that the money we are spending today will be paid by our grandchildren may seems a stretch, but equate it to the Megapenny Project, and it become possible when such a picture inside is drawn inside one’s head what big money resembles.
Such blossoming figures brought to mind a quotation from an acquaintance’s wife, who, early in their marriage, blithely declared, “Pay for something with your credit card, and you don’t have to pay for it.” It seems that saying must have spread far and wide since the words fell from her lips.
To be certain, millions were difficult for our grandparents to grasp. The idea of a national debt in the hundreds of millions was, to them, a frightening aspect.
Then, along came billions. By then, the grandparents, who scrimped through the Depression, were gone, so they never had to understand billion. Today we face multi-trillion figures and tomorrow…as I stated before, I will hold that for another day.
I believe it would be helpful to the public in general, and our legislators in particular if, in each state capital and, to be sure, in the District of Columbia, where was erected a “Million-Dollar Monument,” figuring the height of 1 million dollar bills.
The idea behind such a grand edifice would be that politicians would/could look at such a monetary monument and visualize, “If this legislation of mine is passed, we will be in debt for 25 or 125 of those monuments.” If air space would allow, one should also be considered as a “Billion Monument.” And a trillion? I won’t demand such a thing. It might bump into clouds, maybe kill migrating birds and get in the way of jetliners.
With such hefty figures drifting about the printed page and through the airwaves, is it any wonder why youngsters don’t see much use in building a humble savings account? Five dollars a month, drawing maybe 2 percent interest is hardly going to get a decent set of shoes or a new cell phone some day.
Pity the parents who are pressed by a youngster of this modern age, “Could I borrow a couple thousand, Pop, I want to go to Mexico over the holidays?” “Young lady, do you know how much I earned on my first job?”
“Dad, nobody mows grass for $5 a yard any more, nobody. Do I get the money or not?”
This could be why parents and children don’t see finances through the same set of glasses, thanks to things like trillions.