What does one TRILLION dollars look like?

What does one TRILLION dollars look like? All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"... A billion dollars... A hundred billion dollars... Eight hundred billion dollars... One TRILLION dollars... What does that look like? We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

$10,000 pictured above.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

$1,000,000 (one million dollars)

While a measly $1 million above looked a little unimpressive, below is a $100 million, it is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet.

$100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars)

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

$1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) above 10 pallets.

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros. You ready for this?

It's pretty surprising.

Go ahead...

Scroll down...

Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 trillion dollars...

$1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) (And notice those pallets are double stacked.) Just because million, billion, and trillion sound alike as words, have nearly the same amount of letters, they are certainly nowhere near the same. Consider this also... If I gave you a $100 bill every second, it would take 2.75 hours to give you a million dollars. if I gave you a $100 bill every second, 24 hours a day, it would take just over 115 days to pay you $1 billion. Care to guess how long it would take if I gave you a $100 per second to make a trillion? 317 years.