We keep hearing the term "TRILLION" being tossed about when speaking of the Federal budget. Just how much is a TRILLION dollars? Lets put some different amounts of money in perspective by measuring them in $100 bills using common measuring sticks that everyone can relate to.
Just to make sure my calculations were correct I dug up a barrel of greenbacks that I had buried in the back yard. A $100 bill is printed on very high quality paper and is
.005 inches thick. A million dollars is a stack of $100 bills only 50 inches high. I counted them and there are 10,000 of them in a million dollars. The volume of $1 million was 2.154 cubic feet. REMEMBER ,The stack of bills is only 50 inches high.
Therefore:
A million dollars in $100 bills could easily fit in a small (12" X 15") medicine cabinet.
A billion dollars in $100 dollar bills is 1000 times greater than a million and would fill a very small room ( 7.8 ft. X 7.8 ft ) with a 7 1/2 foot ceiling. That stack of bills is
.79 miles high
A trillion dollars in $100 dollar bills is 1000 times greater than a billion dollars and would fill 53 double wide ( 24 x 48 feet) homes. That stack of bills would be an unimaginable
789 miles high.
You math majors check out my numbers. I hope I am wrong.
PS: Yes, I reburied the barrel of greenbacks.
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