A million, billion or trillion … who cares?
I care. For decades, teaching and training various disciplines and age groups, I always looked for an easy way to make extremely large numbers understandable, especially to younger children. What worked back then may be applicable now.
One way I broke down ONE MILLION was to explain there are 86,400 seconds in one day. Therefore, a million seconds would last 11.5 DAYS.
Jump up to ONE BILLION and that would be 31.7 YEARS — a big difference. Lastly, with ONE TRILLION — how long is a trillion seconds? Bam! Now we’re at 31,709 YEARS.
Consider that on Dec. 3 our former president pledged $1 billion to countries in Africa, to be used for families displaced by severe drought. Sounds really generous — but I look at the recent devastation of flooding in North Carolina and the many displaced families and see it differently.
Review the previous paragraph when noting that $1 billion, IF granted to 11,578 North Carolina families, would equate to a onetime payment of $86,400 for each family.
American taxpayers don’t rule the world — we just pay for it.
Mark Steffan, Bradford
