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What does one trillion dollars look like?

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Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#11

Post by archangel_one »

fpp wrote: post #8

The "mother" of the dollar bill stack visualizations was done by "crunchweb" in 2003/2006 to visualize the cost of the Iraq war (then 316 Billion - now > 1 Trillion) http://87billion.com/ Another good one - visualizing the cost of the 2008 financial crisis (581 Trillion) http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/03/27/632/

Worth noting: that figure of $581tn is the total worldwide exposure in derivatives, not the actual amount lost. They give the much more reasonable figure of $1.1tn earlier, and suggest that's unlikely to be accurate, but then go on to visualise the higher amount as though that's what the crisis cost with no real evidence at all.

Given the nature of derivatives, it might well not be possible to lose that much ever, even if the zombiepocalypse happens.

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#12

Post by vbs_redlof »

fpp wrote: post #8

The "mother" of the dollar bill stack visualizations was done by "crunchweb" in 2003/2006 to visualize the cost of the Iraq war (then 316 Billion - now > 1 Trillion) http://87billion.com/ Another good one - visualizing the cost of the 2008 financial crisis (581 Trillion) http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/03/27/632/

Another "mother" http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_ex...

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#13

Post by jessriedel »

To me, it's much more constructive to visualize what a huge amount of money can buy, not the money itself. (One of the other commenters is right that it only makes sense to divide a trillion dollar debt over 300 million people. But I think numbers in the millions or even a billion should be visual because projects of this size are local, and so are not split over every American.)

$1 million is roughly how much a median-wage American ($40k/yr) can save by living modestly above subsistence levels ($18k/yr) over a 45 year career. I call it "a life's work".

Now, this isn't just a hobby or side project. Most people happily and rightfully include raising their children as their proudest life's accomplishment. It's "what can one do in a human lifetime after paying for room and board".

Anyways, this helps me think harder when our local government wants to spend $5 million on a project. Is it really worth 5 life's works? Maybe, maybe not.

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#14

Post by jeremyjh »

CarlosT wrote: post #10
curtis wrote: post #7

One problem with these kinds of visualizations is that they're often used to visualize things like the U.S. federal budget or, especially, the federal debt. The problem is that to tell those stories accurately, the visualization of trillions of dollars should be accompanied by a visualization of 300 million people.

Exactly. Since 50% of high growth companies are funded with less than $50,000, $1 trillion would fund the start of 20M young high growth companies. Fairly certain at least one of those, 20M, would have solved the financial crisis. In other related news, as of a couple of years ago, my town has a beautiful new landscaped highway median, welcoming you as you enter the city. Source: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/in…

>50% of high growth companies are funded with less than $50,000

What is your source for that?

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#17

Post by BasilAwad »

alan_cx wrote: post #5
startupfounder wrote: post #3

$6.6 billion in cash was "lost"[0] and then found[1] in Iraq which I can now visualize as 66 pallets of cold hard cash. How do you lose that? [0] http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/06/13/exp.tsr... [1] http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/26/once-thought-lost-a... [Edit] There is $1.18 Trillion in circulation in the USA, about as much as in the last image: http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_1277…

Iraq is well known for its huge Sufis....

can you expand? as a person who enjoyed reading rumi, I have no clue what you are saying.

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#18

Post by gnosis »

lifeformed wrote: post #9
thelegit wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bet it'd be 100x as big... hah sorry had to.. but seriously would be crazy!

Now do it in pennies.

Here's a trillion pennies:

http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/sixteen.asp

And if that's not enough, one quadrillion pennies:

http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/seventeen.asp

and if that's still not enough, one quintillion pennies:

http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/eighteen.asp

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#19

Post by kens »

curtis wrote: post #7

One problem with these kinds of visualizations is that they're often used to visualize things like the U.S. federal budget or, especially, the federal debt. The problem is that to tell those stories accurately, the visualization of trillions of dollars should be accompanied by a visualization of 300 million people.

I find it extremely helpful to convert any big US-wide number a per-capita value, which you can easily estimate in your head by multiplying by 3 and dividing by a billion. As a random example, the US spends $55 billion on pets annually, which is just an arbitrary number to me. But convert this to about $165 per capita and now it's much easier to see if this number is reasonable, compare it to other expenditures, etc.

(And then there's the satirical visualization from Saturday Night Live: How big is a $16 trillion dollar debt? Imagine each of these dollar bills represents one trillion dollars. It would take a stack of 16 of them to equal $16 trillion dollars.)

Re: What does one trillion dollars look like?

#20

Post by neilxdsouza »

Here is my visualization of the 16 Trillion Dollars bailout given by the Federal Reserve to the Banks that cannot fail:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/have-you-heard-a...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2011/09/20/the-...

US Population : About 314 million Bailout : USD 16 Trillion = 16000 billion = 16,000,000 million Hence loading factor per person: 16,000,000 / 314 = about 50000 dollars. I.e. The Federal Reserve Loaded every US citizen with an additional burden of USD 50,000

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