Just how much is a $trillion

[VF500]

I've heard people try and explain how much a trillion dollars is in terms of what it would buy. I explain it visually in terms of how tall a stack it is. An average bill has a thickness of about three thousandths of an inch, 0.003 inches. A million dollars in hundred dollar bills would make a stack 30 inches tall or two and a half feet, not all that much. A billion dollars is a thousand times taller or 2,500 feet, almost half a mile. Madoff made off with about twenty-three and a half miles of hundred dollar bills. A trillion is a thousand times taller than a billion or 473.48 miles of hundred dollar bills. :eek: That's real money. ;)

As a comparison for the 473.5 mile stack of hundred dollar bills, the average altitude of a weather satellite is 534 miles up. That puts the stack height well into space.

[Gintaras]

and what if you SUM all mortgages and credit card bills of all people in US and to put that number against a worth of goods they've produced?

Madoff's scam would look like stealing a dime....don't you think so?