

What does one trillion dollars look like? - gnosis
http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

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jessriedel
To me, it's much more constructive to visualize what a huge amount of money
can buy, not the money itself. (One of the other commenters is right that it
only makes sense to divide a trillion dollar debt over 300 million people. But
I think numbers in the millions or even a billion should be visual because
projects of this size are _local_ , and so are not split over every American.)

$1 million is roughly how much a median-wage American ($40k/yr) can save by
living modestly above subsistence levels ($18k/yr) over a 45 year career. I
call it "a life's work".

Now, this isn't just a hobby or side project. Most people happily and
rightfully include raising their children as their proudest life's
accomplishment. It's "what can one do in a human lifetime after paying for
room and board".

Anyways, this helps me think harder when our local government wants to spend
$5 million on a project. Is it really worth 5 life's works? Maybe, maybe not.

~~~
thrownaway2424
What could you do with a trillion bucks? You could build 20000 miles of high-
speed railways. You could purchase, outright, more than 90% of Canada.

I used to think about this a lot when the cost of Bush the Lesser's war was
passing a trillion dollars. It eventually ended up costing almost 2 trillion.

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rm999
It's really hard to imagine a trillion dollars, but it's also hard to imagine
7 billion people or 300 million Americans. Usually when we're talking about
trillions of dollars we're talking about something at a national or
international level, i.e. shared among a large group of people. Dollars per
capita is often a better metric because it's _normalized_ to something more
tangible.

A trillion dollars is about 3200 dollars per American or 12000 dollars per
American taxpayer. It's still a lot of money, but much easier to think about.

~~~
rogerbinns
> ... per American taxpayer

Isn't everyone a taxpayer? Or did you only mean "federal taxpayer"? Even then
anyone who has a phone is paying federal taxes on the service. And people pay
tax on consumption (sales and service taxes), city, county and state taxes,
fuel, and the list goes on. I suspect that the vast majority pay taxes several
times a month rather than the 1 in 4 you imply!

~~~
crgt
My daughter doesn't pay taxes. She doesn't earn any money. She's 6.

~~~
mistere
Bad news: if she's a US citizen then at age 6 she already owes about $215,000.
As a US citizen she _will_ pay taxes. She'll start out by paying for part of
your debt (and your parent's debt.) Then, she'll pay for her own debt.

I've apologized to my daughter (now 24 years old) for the burden. It's
unconscionable but it's the will of the majority so I have no choice.

~~~
pkulak
The majority of American debt is held by Americans. So buck up. Maybe some
other schmuck will just be paying out to your daughter.

------
curtis
One problem with these kinds of visualizations is that they're often used to
visualize things like the U.S. federal budget or, especially, the federal
debt. The problem is that to tell those stories accurately, the visualization
of trillions of dollars should be accompanied by a visualization of 300
million people.

~~~
CarlosT
Exactly. Since 50% of high growth companies are funded with less than $50,000,
$1 trillion would fund the start of 20M young high growth companies. Fairly
certain at least one of those, 20M, would have solved the financial crisis.

In other related news, as of a couple of years ago, my town has a _beautiful_
new landscaped highway median, welcoming you as you enter the city.

Source: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/inc-staff/survey-of-
inc-5...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/inc-staff/survey-of-inc-500-ceos-
how-their-companies-grow.html)

~~~
jeremyjh
>50% of high growth companies are funded with less than $50,000

What is your source for that?

~~~
CarlosT
Source: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/inc-staff/survey-of-
inc-5...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/inc-staff/survey-of-inc-500-ceos-
how-their-companies-grow.html)

------
startupfounder
$6.6 billion in cash was "lost"[0] and then found[1] in Iraq which I can now
visualize as 66 pallets of cold hard cash. How do you lose that?

[0][http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/06/13/exp.tsr...](http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/06/13/exp.tsr.todd.missing.iraq.cash.cnn)
[1][http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/26/once-thought-
lost-a...](http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/26/once-thought-lost-and-now-
found-6-billion/)

[Edit] There is $1.18 Trillion in circulation in the USA, about as much as in
the last image: <http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm>

~~~
alan_cx
Iraq is well known for its huge Sufis....

~~~
BasilAwad
can you expand? as a person who enjoyed reading rumi, I have no clue what you
are saying.

~~~
biot
I can only parse that as being a really lame pun on losing your cash beneath
the cushions of a sofa.

------
neilxdsouza
Here is my visualization of the 16 Trillion Dollars bailout given by the
Federal Reserve to the Banks that cannot fail:

[http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/have-you-
heard-a...](http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/have-you-heard-about-
the-16-trillion-dollar-bailout-the-federal-reserve-handed-to-the-too-big-to-
fail-banks)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2011/09/20/the-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2011/09/20/the-
feds-16-trillion-bailouts-under-reported/)

US Population : About 314 million Bailout : USD 16 Trillion = 16000 billion =
16,000,000 million Hence loading factor per person: 16,000,000 / 314 = about
50000 dollars. I.e. The Federal Reserve Loaded every US citizen with an
additional burden of USD 50,000

------
dredmorbius
As with others: values make most sense not in the abstract (how big is a stack
of $1 trillion in $100 bills), but in context.

How does a budget item compare with other items on the budget? How does it
compare with GDP or population? How does the cost of a school compare with a
hospital?

Here's the US federal budget depicted graphically:
[http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/02/2012...](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/02/2012-budget.png)

The xkcd "money" graphic is a classic of the genre, representing values from a
cup of coffee ($2) to the all human economic productivity ($2,397 trillion).

<http://xkcd.com/980/huge>

------
hkmurakami
Or it could look like one platinum coin.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_Dollar_Coin>

------
BasilAwad
Visualization Summary: Scrooge McDuck use to dive into about 1/4 of a trillion
dollars.

------
fpp
The "mother" of the dollar bill stack visualizations was done by "crunchweb"
in 2003/2006 to visualize the cost of the Iraq war (then 316 Billion - now > 1
Trillion)

<http://87billion.com/>

Another good one - visualizing the cost of the 2008 financial crisis (581
Trillion)

<http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/03/27/632/>

~~~
archangel_one
Worth noting: that figure of $581tn is the total worldwide exposure in
derivatives, not the actual amount lost. They give the much more reasonable
figure of $1.1tn earlier, and suggest that's unlikely to be accurate, but then
go on to visualise the higher amount as though that's what the crisis cost
with no real evidence at all.

Given the nature of derivatives, it might well not be _possible_ to lose that
much ever, even if the zombiepocalypse happens.

------
paprika
Very trivial (or maybe not?) to illustrate that kind of money next to one
single human being. Interesting though.

Something similar - Greek's debt illustrated on trucks of cash:
[http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_gree...](http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_greek.html)

------
vlasev
I find that this is not a good way to visualize what a trillion dollars looks
like. Check out these infographics - they are a lot better.

<http://demonocracy.info/>

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tzury
Just to make it clear once forever, that in Hollywood movies, when they say
"You have 3 hours too arrange $100MM in cash" etc. there is no way this money
will feet into a suitcase.

~~~
wereHamster
A bitcoin private key fits nicely onto a single page of paper. Print it, hand
it over to the bad guys, done.

~~~
jld
By the time you hit print the bitcoins are only worth $66.5 million. Or was it
$135.7 million?

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michaelkscott
I wonder what it would look like if the stack was filled with one dollar bills
rather than 100s. I'm sure the visualization would be quite mind boggling.

~~~
thelegit
bet it'd be 100x as big...

hah sorry had to.. but seriously would be crazy!

~~~
lifeformed
Now do it in pennies.

~~~
gnosis
Here's a trillion pennies:

<http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/sixteen.asp>

And if that's not enough, one quadrillion pennies:

<http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/seventeen.asp>

and if that's still not enough, one quintillion pennies:

<http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/eighteen.asp>

~~~
lifeformed
Now do it in peak-of-hyperinflation Zimbabwean pennies! I'm not sure if
there's enough atoms in the universe for that.

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intopieces
The writing on this page is insufferable. A more effective presentation of
this information would have been a simple graphic.

------
maaku
"A billion here, a billion there ... pretty soon we're talking about real
money." (-my first civil servant boss)

~~~
jacques_chester
Originally attributed Senator Dirksen, though he later claimed it was a
misquote by a journalist.

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Everett_Dirksen>

~~~
maaku
Thanks, I figured that quote came from somewhere.

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alpb
I remember this page from 2005 or so. Good to see again indeed.

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samholmes
I guess I could live on that amount. :\

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sddhrthrt
Now, that's the SketchUp, isn't it? ;)

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bestest
Why is _this_ one the front page?

~~~
xkcdfanboy
Because a majority of asshat startup fanatics are also money fanatics. Let's
face it, most of the reason people want to do startups, it because they have
dreams of grandeur.

And I agree, it is extremely embarrassing that this money article would be
vote up by HN users.

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berkay
Wonder how much it weighs?

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jpxxx
Iraq, more or less.

~~~
AsylumWarden
Or, just for the politics of it, almost 1/6 of the increase in the national
debt up to now since President Obama took office. Just saying...

