I don't know how many people have told me "It's only a trillion dollars", or have otherwise made reference to a trillion dollars being "almost nothing anymore". Well, I decided that I needed to put that amount into perspective in a way that makes it easy to undertand for everybody.

1 trillion is 1 x 10 to the 12th power (1,000,000,000,000). It could also be written as a 1000 billion, or a million million.

Now, to put 1 trillion dollars into perspective for everybody:

- There are approximately 37 million people in the United States. If everyone were to pay or receive an equal share, everyone would either pay or receive $27,027.32. Yes, that is right, over 27 thousand dollars to pay or be paid out to every man, woman, and child in the United States. A trillion dollar stimulus, paid to each American equally, sure looks good.

- Now, let's assume that all 37 million people have to pay a 1 trillion dollar debt, and want to pay in simple weekly installments. Each one of us begins with paying $27.03, and pays $25 each week thereafter until it is paid off. We will make the final payment in 1080 WEEKS !!!! Or to put in other terms, in 20 YEARS and 40 WEEKS, every one of us would have paid the 1 trillion dollars of debt.

Now, the next time some politician wants to add another trillion in discretionary spending to the national debt, tell him or her about this little fact presented above.

The above presented by a concerned American.

 

There are more than 37 million people in the US, so you have a typo or mistake there.

FWIW, the national debt (money we have already spent) is $13.5 Trillion.

And our federal government unfunded liabilities (money we have already committed to spend in the future) is $110 Trillion.

There are about 139 million employed persons on the country, and maybe 120 million full time employed. If you calculate the debt and unfunded liabilities per employed person, it's staggering. Even worse if you only include private sector employed persons.

Oh, and don't forget to add state government debt and unfunded liabilities, too. That's many more $ Trillions.

I figure my kids (ages 9 and 7) owe the government about $500,000 each. It'll be worse by the time they start working.

 

Yeah ok, but if you switch your car insurance to Geico, you could save a few hundred dollars this year.

 

Then if you figure 60% of the working populace actually pay taxes the picture gets even worse.

 

there is 307 million people in the US.

if you divided it up for every person it would be 3,257 dollars for every trillion dollars. so roughly 39K for 12 trillion dollars.

 

Yes, and that 60% isn't hiring anymore which means even less tax revenue to pay for the obscene amount of debt we have. Including future obligations, it's actually around 50 T.

In comparison, all the land and buildings on planet earth are only worth about 60 T.

 

Think about how many Cokes you could buy!!!

 

Everyone should take a look at the US debt clock.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/


The unfunded liabiliites alone are $356,700+ per person.

Since less than 1/2 the people have jobs and about 1/2 of those actually pay income taxes, that gets you up to about $1.4 million per taxpayer (ball park figure). Just for the federal unfunded liabilities.

Than add in the defecit, the national debt, the state debts and whatever personal debt people have accumulated by themselves. Seriously, the average tax payer is in debt about $2 million, most of which was spent/committed for us by the U.S. Government.

 

You forgot about interest and future liabilities.

 

Current statistics puts the population of the USA, as of late 2010, at 310,300,000

 

We all know what you mean. "Perspective" is code!

There is a line of responsibility that has to be drawn which extended to the words we choose, including how we use even legitimate words like "perspective". "The political dialogue has certain boundaries.



The Socialist Worker-Deciphering their racist code words

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dFh...ayer_embedded#!

Hot Air-LA Times op-ed reveals new racist code word: “Elitist”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkAks...layer_embedded

What a bunch of hateful, white, rich, racist, pick-up driving hee-haa's you all are!

You just hate poor people. The rich have more than they need. These trillions of dollars are about putting the wealth in the hands of it's rightfull owners. The workers.

"Poor people" is code you know.

 

[QUOTE=wittom;4362882]We all know what you mean. "Perspective" is code!

There is a line of responsibility that has to be drawn which extended to the words we choose, including how we use even legitimate words like "perspective". "The political dialogue has certain boundaries. [QUOTE]

Or even words like, hateful or white or rich or racist !!!


[QUOTE=wittom;4362882] What a bunch of hateful, white, rich, racist, pick-up driving hee-haa's you all are!

You just hate poor people. The rich have more than they need. These trillions of dollars are about putting the wealth in the hands of it's rightfull owners. The workers.

"Poor people" is code you know.[QUOTE]

Sounds to me like your the only racist one posting in this thread

 

Race has nothing to do with OPs post. Please leave.

 

Oh man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset anyone. The OP's post does in fact have something to do with race. I don't know if you remember the last administration that spent all kinds of our money. Do you remember the people who protested the spending and what it was for? Do you remember how they were called partiotic? They were standing up for the taxpayers who's money was being squandered. Do you remember all the criticism for the money borrowed from China and the enourmous debt that it saddeled the country with? Trillons of dollars in debt. The debt that the OP is referring to.

So now, we have the Obama administration, who was left with a big mess
from the previous eight years. He and his administration have to do a lot of work to fix wat was broken under Bush. The debt was huge when the new administration took over, so what did they do? They spent more and more, at break neck speed, plunging our country further and further in debt. The debt that the OP is referring to.

There is something different now, under Obama though. There are people protesting this out of control spending that's leading to the rapid expansion of the debt. People like thoes who call themselves part of the Tea (taxed enough already) Party movement, of which I am one. We are protesting the continuation of the recklessness that we passively endured for the eight years of the last administration. Finally, we mustered the courage to get out of our houses and speak up. Are we called partiotic? No, not patriotic, but racist. We are called racist because we oppose the spending of trillions of dollars that future generation will have to pay back. It's said that we only oppose this out of control spending because Obama is black. It's said that when we use words like elitist, socialist or Muslim, we are using code words that mean something racial. Trillions of dollars in debt and counting, and the people who favor this recklessness defend themselves by calling the people who oppose it racists.

Maybe the OP didn't intend for the discussion to include this aspect of the trillions of dollars in debt. This is an open forum, and I believe that it's an important part of the discussion. I did try to make my point with some mocking humor but I guess that's only acceptable if your John Stewart, Steven Colbert or Bill Maher. I'm sorry if you don't like what I have to say. You have the option of alerting the moderators to censor my opinion. Unless the moderators decide otherwise, I'm not going anywhere.

 

I'm Republican, but consider myself pretty much in agreement with the Tea Party. I'm only worried that it is going to split the Republican party and be a spoiler to let some Democratic candidates win.