I think people are very confused with the terms million… billion… and trillion. We just cannot put are arms around the concept of billions and trillions.

Most people relate large sums of money to their income. If you earn $50k per year you can understand that double that is $100k. So you can see that ten times that is 1 million dollars. These are numbers we can all manage.

The problem is when we look at a billion or a trillion. The numbers just don’t have meaning. I would suggest that we stop using the terms billion and trillion and stick with millions. If we can understand what a million is than why muddle it with more incomprehensible terms.

This is much easier.

• A billion is one thousand million.
  So, if the US budget is $3 billion dollars, it really is “three thousand million” dollars. It keeps all the numbers in perspective that way.
• A trillion one hundred thousand million. Yipes.

So, if we need to spend a trillion dollars to get the economy going, we are spending one hundred thousand million dollars.