I enjoyed John Pace’s article in the June 19-25 issue of the River Reporter, “When someone is down, you do not kick them.” I was particularly interested in the example of how long it would take to spend 1 billion dollars. 

As you know, the news is constantly talking about government spending in the billions and accumulating deficits in the trillions. As a financial person, I have a hard time fathoming exactly how much money they are talking about. I would like to share a way to possibly get a little better understanding of what these numbers mean.

These calculations are based upon 1 second of time.

1  million seconds =  11.57 days

1  billion seconds =   31.71 years

1  trillion seconds =  31,709.8 years

When I think about the national debt, I am reminded of the phrase we all have heard and probably used, “Not in a million years.” Using the above example, the current national debt would be the equivalent of more than 1 million years, in which each second of that million years represents $1 that we owe. OMG!!

Brian McCabe
Callicoon Center, NY