U. S. National Debt Clock

1 billion is 1 thousand millions and 1 trillion is 1 thousand billions, or a million millions. One-half trillion is 500 billions.

A billion and a trillion are difficult numbers to visualize, let’s put it into perspective:

** A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
** If you count one number a second without stopping until you reach a billion,that task would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.
** One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun.
** It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling off a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled off a trillion dollar bills.
** If you had gone into business on the day Jesus was born and your business lost a million dollars a day, day in and day out,365 days a year, it would take you until October 2737 to lose a trillion dollars