Perspective. One trillion dollars. How long would it take to spend a TRILLION dollars, at 1 MILLION dollars a day? Is this a lot of money?

Let’s examine how big a trillion really is.


Quiz:


Question: Do you think the average American, given all the advancements in modern medicine, will live for 1 trillion seconds?


Answer: There are 60 seconds in a minute. There are 60 minutes in an hour. There are 24 hours in a day. For our purposes, there are 365 days in a year. So, the number of seconds in a year is:

60 seconds per minute x 60 minutes per hour x 24 hours per day x 365 days per year = 31,635,000 seconds per year.

That is translated into 31 million, 635 thousand seconds in a year

1 trillion is a one followed by 12 zeroes, 1,000,000,000,000

So the number of years in 1 trillion seconds is the number of seconds in 1 trillion divided by the number of seconds in one year:

1,000,000,000,000/31,635,000

The result is 31,611 (rounded up) years.


Let’s state that a little clearer, 1 trillion seconds is equivalent to 31,611 years. So the answer is NO, modern medicine can NOT extend the average life of an American to 31 Thousand 6 Hundred and 11 Years.


Now, let’s explore trillions in relation to the way our government spends our money.


The latest figures (www.wsj.com) indicate that in the last five years, the Bush administration let the deficit grow from 1.2 trillion to 3.5 trillion dollars. More than double.


It is unclear, at this point, whether or not that includes the 350 billion dollars already spent to stimulate the economy. The second 350 billion has not been released by Congress because of continued sluggishness in the economy after the first 350 billion infusion. Thank God Almighty that Barney Frank and the boys are mandating accountability for all this additional spending. Of course, we don’t want to talk about his involvement in the sub-prime debacle.


On top of that, the Democrats and the Obama administration want to add another 2+ trillion to that deficit within the next two years.


So, that will bring the National deficit to over 5 trillion dollars.


Now, let’s examine how long it will take to pay that back. One trillion seconds is equivalent to 31,611 years. So, if my math is correct, if we start paying back that debt at the rate of 1 dollar per second, it would take over 158,000 years to pay off the deficit.


Considering, Homo sapiens have only been around for 30,000 years, it will take more than 5 times the amount of time we have been in existence just to break even. Doesn’t that give you pause that this spending program just will not work?


Let’s up the contribution to $1,000 per second. How many years will it take to pay off the deficit?


31,635,000 seconds per year x $1,000 per second = $31,635,000,000 per year

This translates to a repayment schedule of 31 Billion, 635 million dollar per year. So how many years will it take to pay off a 5 trillion dollar deficit?


5,000,000,000,000/31,635,000,000 = 159+ years just to pay off the deficit at a rate of $1,000 per second. Now that doesn’t include the interest expense for borrowing the money.


Interest expense? How can that be? The government doesn’t have to pay interest on its own money.


Au contraire, mes amis. (gosh, did I just say more than merci beaucoup?)


Maybe that high school French did some good after all. Of course, we only took French and Latin after we had 10 years of English. Maybe we should look at some of the old curricula, they seem to work. No, of course not. How ridiculous. That was an era that students were expected to perform and if they didn’t, they failed. It is a shame how much we learned under those conditions versus how little the students learn under today’s standards of performance. Thank God for the Teachers’ Union. We can not measure how much they have contributed to the advancement of education in this country. I digress, so back to the point.


Just for fun, let’s see what the affect of interest would be:


Let’s assume the government can borrow the money at an annual interest rate of 2 percent (.02). This would result in an annual interest expense of:


$1,000,000,000,000 x .02 = $20,000,000,000 per year simple interest

[For those graduates of our federal education system, that is 20 Billion Dollars.]


$20,000,000,000 per year interest / 31,635,000 seconds in a year = $632.11 per second interest (rounded)


That means that the cost of money at 2% per year interest is $632.11 per second. If we are paying back (from the previous example) at the rate of $1,000.00, then the portion that is actually applied to principle is ($1,000.00 - $632.11) $367.89 per second.


Recalculating the payoff when considering a cost of money of 2% per annum, simple interest, the result is:

31,635,000 seconds per year x $367.89 = $11,638,200,150.00 per year principle pay down

$5,000,000,000,000 total deficit / $11,638,200,150.00 per year = 429.62 years (rounded)


The cold hard facts are that the government has no money. Every dollar the government spends is borrowed. Some of you will argue that the taxes we pay are not borrowed funds. You are absolutely correct. They are confiscated funds. If you don’t believe they are confiscated, don’t pay your taxes and see how quickly you are put in jail and your personal property is sold to pay your tax levies. Of course, the government is not concerned with your family responsibilities. They are left to fend for themselves. Not to worry, they can go on welfare, which is only fair since the government took all of your hard earned assets.