I saw a story in the paper that said our national debt is now over $11 trillion. I also know this because the other day I walked past The National Debt Clock they have off Sixth Avenue here in New York. They have to put up a new clock pretty soon so that it will register a quadrillion dollars.
One of the things I don’t know is how much a trillion dollars is and I know a quadrillion is a lot more than that. My dictionary says: “The cardinal number that is equal to 10 to the 12th power.”
Does that help you understand how much a trillion dollars is? I don’t think the dictionary knows how much it is either. What’s a “cardinal number” anyway? How many cheeseburgers could I buy with a cardinal number? Give me something specific that I could understand.
A trillion dollars is 1,000 billion. A billion is 1000 million. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing says it comes up with $700 million in paper money every day. About half of that is in one dollar bills.
It also said the average dollar bill lasts two years. The average $100 bill lasts almost seven and a half years, I don’t know about that. I know a hundred dollars doesn’t last me seven years.
They say people don’t like $100 bills because they’re apt to confuse them with dollar bills in their pocket. Now who would say a thing like that? I mean if I have a $100 bill in my pocket, I’m not about to confuse it with a one dollar bill or with a note listing what groceries I should buy, either.
It’s a good feeling to have some change in your pocket. Something to jingle. I don’t care much for fifty cent pieces but you don’t run into them anymore anyway. Silver dollars are just for the coin collectors now.
If politicians had to use silver dollars to pay off our national debt, maybe we wouldn’t have one
