Saturday, September 20, 2008

How Much is a Trillion?

1,000,000,000,000. A one with twelve zeros behind it. Ten to the twelfth power.
10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10 times 10.

A trillion dollars would buy 222.2 Nimitz class aircraft carriers at 4.5 billion dollars each.
A trillion dollars would buy 1000 World Trade Centers at one billion dollars each.
A trillion dollars is more that 1664 times the gross of the Movie Titanic.†
A trillion dollars would be three thousand three hundred thirty three dollars for every man woman and child in the United States.
A trillion dollars would be $541,726.68 for each of the 1,845,950 families¹ ² who make up the top 2% of taxpayers in addition to all of the other taxes we on the bottom 98% have heaped on them. Since that is all of those who earn $250,000 or above³, it won't include your family doctor, but it will include your cosmetic surgeon, your local Superintendent of Schools, all of your Congressmen, Your Union leaders, all of those whiny Hollywood stars, and the NBA (only the true stars of the NFL though).

My salary stops half way to the forth times ten. The parachuting CEOs are only escaping with a little over 300 times that. And we are still a long way from a trillion dollars.

I have always thought of my self as a free market Laissez Faire type of person, a real Ayn Rander. But there is something else. There is an implied honesty, integrity, and nobility required that seems to be missing from these bankers. They are not Midas Mulligan who paid off every depositor to the penny. They are from the "Fuck you, I got mine" group instead.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
¹http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html
²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
³http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm

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