billions!

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The modern world talks extraordinarily huge numbers like billions. Lets figure this out...

1 hour = 3600 seconds
1 day = 86400 seconds
1 year = 31,536,000 seconds
32 x 31,536,000 = 1,009,152,000.
So about a billion seconds ago it was 1978!

So when we talk about the trillion dollar Greek bailout, or the American debt it's incredible.
It would take 32,000 years to spend a dollar a second, assuming you earned $3600/hr, even while sleeping.

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

What he means to say is if you spent $1 per second it would take you roughly 32,000 years to get to 1 trillion dollars spent.

To reach this years projected US Federal Deficit at $1 per second it would take you over 60,000 years and back to before the evolution of Homo Sapiens.

In otherwords the US *this year alone* has borrowed more dollars than the human species has existed in seconds

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

http://www.babylontoday.com/national_debt_clock.htm

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

It is interesting that at the end of the Clinton administration, once he balanced the budget the debt clock in NY was retired. Once Bush got into power it was put back in service.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

That shows more about the authors of the clock rather than about the nature of the national debt (which I'm sure hasn't stopped increasing even under Clinton).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Apples and oranges are sweet. :-)

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

except in this case the comparison is not to show similarity in properties but similarities in scale in which case comparing apples to oranges is appropriate since they are roughly the same size.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You win.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

That was my original point... at least the one in my head before I wrote it down and posted it. I was just astonished how big these numbers are and I was trying to convey that.