Do you know how much the US owes? If you feel like being surprised or depressed, take a look at this website: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ The site gives comprehensive and very understandable details of the US debt. It is live and in real time and at any given moment will depress you more. At this very second the US debt is: $14,431,522,700,000, roughly a trillion and a half dollars. This is equal to $49,319 per person. Have you got that amount to hand over to your government to bail it out of trouble? Apologies – that was a bad question!
How big is a trillion dollars? One trillion dollars is a million million dollars. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros. People in some places may have been taught differently and that there is the “short scale” and “long scale” definitions of these numbers. But without getting into the merits, preference or usage of one naming system over another, let’s just be clear that the above is the system the U.S. government is using.
The size of the trillion $ pile One hundred rows x 100 pallets per row is 10,000 pallets of $100 bills! Each individual pallet is 42″ wide by 40″ deep. The height of the bills is 38.7″. Add 4″ for a pallet and the total height of one pallet of bills is 42.7″. In the field of pallets described above, the pallets are spaced 12″ apart.
The trillion $ field The field is 50 pallets x 100 pallets by 2 pallets high, so… width = (50 x 42″) + (49 x 12″) = 2100″ + 588″ = 2688″ = 224 ft deep = (100 x 40″) + (99 x 12″) = 4000″ + 1188″ = 5188″ = 432.33ft high = 2 x 42.7″ = 85.4″ = just a little over 7ft high. So our field of pallets is roughly 224ft x 432ft x 7ft high. At 96,768 square feet, it’s about 2.2 acres and well over the size of a football field. Got it?
The national debt field Our national debt is about 14 5 trillion dollars so the field is 14.5 times as the trillion $ field. In other words it is humungous! And each one of us is part of it!
When do we have to pay? The good news is that we don’t have to pay, in cash that is. You will never hear a knock at your front door and be confronted by 2 men in black suits holding an invoice and receipt book for your contribution to the national debt. But you will pay in a hundred different ways without knowing and hopefully without feeling any pain.
How will I pay? Your contribution will be included in a small extra to your tax bill, a few cents on the price of gas or power, a slight adjustment to the sales tax or value added tax in your state or city. But unless the US declares itself insolvent you will pay.
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