How Big Is A Trillion?

With all the recent discussions about spending a trillion on this and a trillion on that, it might be worth considering just what a trillion is.

Yes, its 1000 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 or 1,000,000,000,000 but that doesn't tell the story.

Let's look at it another way.

If someone spent $1,000 the very minute Jesus Christ was born. I mean that's a lot of frankincense, myhr, and gold. But hey, God isn't born every minute either.

Oops, ok, enough of the sidetrack.

So then a minute passes and this someone says that was cool ... I'm going to spend another $1,000 this minute.

A minute later, he realizes this is fun ... and spends another $1,000.

So he does this every minute of that very first hour of Christ's earthly life.

And then he thinks of something else to spend on ... and continues to spend $1,000 every minute for the entire first day of Our Saviour's time on earth.

Thirty Three years later Our Lord and Saviour is Crucified.

Our little spender decides to keep spending $1,000 every minute to drown his sorrows.

A few decades later, still spending $1,000 every single minute, he finds the fountain of youth.

Oh, just in case you are keeping track ... after the first century, he had spent about $52 billion.

So, 20 centuries and change later ... having spent $1,000 a minute for every single minute since the birth of Christ ... our little spender would be up to $1.056 trillion.