We all, to various degrees, have difficulty conceptualizing large numbers. For example, really how big a number is a trillion? This is particularly relevant now that Americans are getting accustomed to the term "trillion dollars" slowly replacing the term "billion dollars." It wasn't so long ago, maybe a decade or two, that a similar transition occurred between millions and billions. With a $1.4 Trillion deficit projection for the current fiscal year, trillion has become the new billion.

OK, here is an exercise to help get our minds to comprehend this dubious achievement. A million seconds is approximately 11.5 days - slightly more than a week and a half. Definitely conceivable. But what is a trillion seconds? A trillion seconds, by comparison, is over 31,000 years!!!

Zimbabwe, here we come. This is an independent multiplicative factor above and beyond substantial reserve status achievement.

Strike