Is 2 Trillion Really a Big Number?

I tend to think the main reason why congress is so willing to spend our money is that they forget what big numbers really are. The attitude is, “well it is only $20 million… so what’s the big deal.”

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” (Senator Everett Dirkson)

I think that the reason why the populous doesn’t scream more at the spending of money is two fold. First, people in general don’t have any idea how much money we are talking about and second, people in general don’t realize that it is their money.

The 2 Trillion from the title is from my last post on how much new debt we are incurring via the bailouts in just the last year. And they have added even more since that post. In reality… it is significantly more… not just a little more.

So, how much money are we really talking about?

What is 1 Million?

First, I want you to consider what a million dollars would mean to you? If you are average American you could buy 4.7 homes (the median price right now is $213,100 – down from $241,000 just in November source). If you wanted to buy a new Hummer H2 you could buy almost 15 of them (source). If you spent 100 per week on groceries, you could buy groceries for 10,000 weeks or over 192 years.

One million dollars is a pretty decent amount of money as a chunk of change.

What is 1 Billion?

Now, let’s put into perspective what 1,000,000,000 (1 Billion) is. Think about that number for a minute. It is likely a much bigger number than you realize. It is 1,000 Million. If we take our home example from above, it could buy almost 4,700 homes. If you have a family of four in each of those average homes, that would be housing for 18,800 people.

But, let’s look at 1 Billion another way. If you had $1,000,000,000 you could spend $1,000,000 every single month (you know buy 4.7 homes every single month or 15 hummers every single month) and not run out of money for more than 83 years.

That’s right, you can spend $1 million every month for over 83 years and have a little left over.

What is 1 Trillion?

1 Trillion seems like a reasonably big number but I would bet it is a bigger number than you think. First, it is 1,000 Billion. It is 1,000,000 million or one million million. We can look at it with our house number above. $1 trillion would buy 4,700,000 houses. With an average of 4 people per house you could house over 18,000,000 people. From the grocery example you could spend $100 per week on groceries for 192,207,692 years.

Is $2 Trillion Dollars a lot of Money?

Yes.

It is simplistic to simply double the results from 1 trillion, but helps to illustrate the point. If you consider the housing example, you get over 36,000,000 people housed. If you consider the grocery example you could feed 384,615,384 people for 1 year at $100 per week (that is a lot of groceries… and notice that is more people than live in the United States). I’d love that grocery budget for my family of 7… we’d get over $36,000 per year for just food… that is way above the poverty level using the government budget that helps add downtown facades.

Conclusion?

Let’s get real… there is way too much money being spent and not enough being produced. People need to understand the real money that is being spent and what it really means to you. After all it is your money that is being spent.

Your money is being wasted on things like the 36-hole frisbee golf course in Texas. Your money is being spent on snowmaking in Minnesota. Your money is going to a baseball complex in Wyoming (to add to what they already have). Your money is going to building a convention center hotel in Dallas.  You get to spend your money on an office tower/residence tower outside Dallas. My personal favorite… $100,000 for 632 doorbells in Laurel, MS. (source)

So, yes, 2 Trillion is a big number.