Linking 1 trillion dollars to the founding of modern Rome...

When I was at school, it wasn't long before I was drawn to the fascinating subject of history. With great teachers who were quick to engage young minds, I was quick to absorb all the best and worst achievements of mankind... nothing quenches the thirst for knowledge more than anchoring a few memorable dates, the names of kings and queens from ancient Egypt to modern Britain, titanic battles fought on land, sea and air plus the rich tapestry of discoveries and inventions stemming from the plain wheel to the rocket engine.

I was trying to figure out what a trillion dollars (one milllion million or thousand billion) mean to people nowdays. It can be hard to get one's head around this (unless you live in Zimbabwe where they have issued a trillion banknote in 2009). There were two ways I approached this:

1. If one were to print and spend 1 million a day, how long would it take to go through a 1 trillion...
- The maths would be 1,000,000,000,000 (that's a whopping twelve zeroes) divided by 1,000,000 = 1 million days. That would be 2,740 years.
- Another way to look at this is, you would have had to go back to 730 BC (before Christ) and keep spending a million dollars a day non-stop up to today. That goes back to the era of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus in 753 BC! Staggering!
[The insignia of the Roman Standard was SPQR: Senatus Populusque Romanus - "The Senate and the People of Rome", or should that be Spending Plentifully Quickly Redux, because it was spending over-reach that led to the demise of the empire in the end.]

2. What does US$ trillion physically look like?
Below are graphics from the Centre for Research on Globalisation (California) / pagetutor.com on what US$ 1 trillion looks like.

Let's start with a humble US$100 note, the largest denomination in general circulation:









A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun:










This next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a carrier bag and walk around with it:


While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet:













And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...














Now, figure this out...US$ 1 TRILLION...a million million or one thousand billion and notice it's double stacked.


This has convinced me the US government with its US$100+ trillion debt mountain (I guess you can picture this now) of liabilities (eg. from current and projected annual fiscal deficits, Medicare & Medicaid healthcare programmes for an increasingly aging population and massive military commitments overseas) is already bankrupt and will never be able to settle in full with its creditors China, Japan, Middle-east oil nations. Given the hard choice between a reality that is hard to accept and a delusion that is impossible to trust, I will pick the reality. The US dollar will descend from current reserve currency status to "Monopoly" money and not be worth the paper it's printed on. The last refuge for stores of value will be in physical commodities like precious metals, crude oil and farmland.

How to plan for and protect yourself against the implications:
How the Greenspan Guidotti Rule foretells a currency crisis?