One Trillion Dollars

There has been a lot of debate over the stimulus plan recently passed by our new president. Many like it, many don't. I don't think I agree with all of it, but whether or not I think it is the best way to do things, it is the approved plan to help our economy. And unlike some people, I don't want it to fail just to prove a point. I am hoping and praying that it works. That it does help our economy, and that all of the good intentions that it was written under become fruitful.

After all, if we are investing ONE TRILLION DOLLARS that we don't even have, some thing good better come of it right?

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Do you know what ONE TRILLION DOLLARS looks like?

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Here is a regular One hundred dollar bill.

We've all seen this.

We've all had one in our pocket or purse at some point.

If you stack 10,000 of these together, you get

One Million Dollars.

It looks about like this:

It's impressive in the amount, after all, it would take the average american 30 years to earn that much money. But it's still small enough it would probably fit in your purse and you could carry it around.

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Take that amount and multiply it by 100, and you have

One Hundred Million Dollars.

It looks about like this:

And I am pretty sure I will never make that much money in my lifetime. Not even before taxes.

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But we hear people talk about One Hundred Million Dollars all the time.

Didn't AIG recently misplace about 165 Million Dollars?

That's more than 1 and a half pallets of money!

"Gee, honey, have you seen that pallet of cash I put in the attic? Did it get put in the boxes marked 'Christmas' again?"

Seriously?

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Okay, so what about a Billion?

That's another term that gets thrown around a bit.

I mean, Facebook (you know, that little networking site that even my Mom joined?) was bought out over a year ago for 4.1 Billion.

4.1 doesn't seem like too much right?

Except that this is what One Billion Dollars looks like:

It's a good thing that transaction was electronic, because it might have taken multiple semi trucks to move 41 pallets of money.

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While this stimulus plan was in committee, a lot of numbers were thrown around.

It started as low as 500 Billion Dollars, but slowly grew as more and more "divinely qualified" plans and special interests were added.

Finally the number reached

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS

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The human mind can't even comprehend that number.

If you started counting now, and counted one dollar every second, it would take you 31,709 years to get to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

Even if you counted by 100's it would take over 300 years.

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ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is a Million Million dollars.

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is a thousand Billion dollars.

ONE TRILLION is a 1 with 12 zeros behind it.

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1,000,000,000,000

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ONE TRILLION DOLLARS looks like this:

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Notice the pallets are double stacked.

Can you see the little man with the red shirt standing in the corner?

No?

Apparently neither can Congress.

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ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is a whole lotta money.

Money that our country doesn't have.

Lets hope and pray together that good comes from this. That our nation can heal and rebuild itself. That one day we can pay off our debts and truly be free.

In the mean time, lets at least be realistic and honest with ourselves and each other.

We need each other, and we need God more now than we ever have.

-Della