Billions, Trillions, what's the difference?

[reapersaurus]

It's not likely that many Americans even recognize the difference between millions, billions, and trillions - to most people, those are probably all just "real big numbers".

But there IS a difference, and no simple analogy/comparison to grains of sand or stars is going to get America interested in reigning in the kinds of absurd numbers our economy

Comments

[toryadore]

Really it should come as no surprise, the lack of the people holding their government officials responsible for this mess. They deal with their own lives the same exact way, passionless and non-confrontational with little to no communication. It's why divorce happens too as a matter of fact. I see it all day long with parents, their children, the school, etc... I really could go on and on. People just want it to "go away". "If I ignore the huge elephant in the room, it will go away soon enough. My vote won't matter unless my candidate wins, so I'll follow the majority, etc..." It is sad...so, so sad....

[reapersaurus]

Updates:

The National Debt Clock (running since 1989) has run out of digits to display the debt.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/10/09/sign-of-the-times-2/?mod=googlenews_wsj

Here's a grass-roots (delusional, but with good info/links) campaign concerned about the debt.
http://www.rockacrossamerica.org/

Here's an economics instructional blog entry (the site has a LOT of excellent information about everything that's going on right now - the "Crash Course" is renowned for its educational content.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/national-debt-officially-over-10-trillion/5924