The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 14)

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I shuddered when I read Mr. Antle's "A Trillion Here..." essay. This budget will of course increase the national debt, which is now over nine trillion dollars. I am the grandfather of four, and I fear that their generation will pay for our profligacy.

Most people have no conception of how much one trillion anything is. For example, one trillion seconds is well over thirty-one thousand YEARS. Think about that. If you could count one number each second, it would take thirty-one thousand seven hundred years to reach the number one trillion. Don't believe me? Do the math.

There are 3,600 seconds in an hour. One million seconds is (I round up slightly) 278 hours, or 11.58 days. A billion is one thousand million, so one billion seconds is 11,580 days, or 31.7 years. A trillion is a thousand billion, so one trillion seconds is 31,700 years.

p>The bad news is that, if the government were to pay off the national debt at One Dollar per second, it would take 290, 200 years to do it. The good news is, that if the government were to pay off the national debt at One Thousand Dollars per second, it would take only 290.2 years. br> -- James F. Csank /p> p> GET WELL SOONEST br> Re: Lawrence Henry's Waiting : /p> p>This probably doesn't mean much coming from a stranger, but I hope you get your wish -- and soon.

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