Whoa, boy! Those are some BIG numbers..

As part of my school reading, I'm going through an economics book called Whatever Happened To Penny Candy by Robert J. Maybury. This book presents economics in a very understandable way, and the author's writing style is quite engaging. Today I read a chapter about the federal debt.

The author states that frankly, he thinks the only ones who truly understand the federal debt are astronomers. He says, "The federal debt has become so huge that it can be grasped only by those who are comfortable discussing the number of light years spanned by our galaxy."

At the time which the author wrote this (which was some years ago), the federal debt was 6.783 trillion, or

$6,783,000,000,000.00

Now in case you aren't thoroughly shocked by this, let's look at some more stats given by Maybury:

(1) If Columbus, when he stepped ashore in America (that was in 1492 A.D. - over 500 years ago!), started borrowing money at the rate of $20,000.00 every minute, he would still not have borrowed the equivalent to the modern day federal debt by the year 2000! (That should have shocked yer socks off!)

(2) If you were to walk a line of $100 bills the length of present day's federal debt, it would take you 228 yrs! This line of $100 bills would also circle the earth all of 240 times!

Well, I, who had never particularly thought about federal debt, got a rude awakening! (I'm still tingling from that shock... wonder how many volts it was?)

-Scribe