Playing With Numbers

I’ve been doing some thinking lately, a rare occurrence I know, but when it happens, I come up with weird stuff like this.  My wife and I were discussing our finances, and I tried putting a few things into perspective (for both of us).

The discussion got me thinking about number, and how we (well, ME at least) have a very poor concept of numbers when they get above the cost of the most expensive things we (don’t) own, which is our house.

A Million

The number one million (1,000,000) seems like a lot, and many people who are termed “millionaires” are considered very wealthy.  This WAS the case once upon a time, but now, you can own a house in many parts of the world which would cost a LOT more than that.  I could buy 5 of my house if I had one million to spend.

A Billion

NOW we’re talking! A billion (1,000,000,000) has three extra zero’s, which means it’s a LOT, especially if you’re talking about money.  However, it’s NOT a lot when talking about something there’s a lot MORE of, such as bacteria. I can’t even imagine how many bacteria there are on the planet.

There are a handful of billionaires on the planet, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of others who are ONLY worth a little over 1 billion (like poor Donald Trump).  See, I just want to put things into perspective.  By comparison, Mr. Trump isn’t worth that much.

A Trillion

Now we get into CRAZY size numbers, especially if you’re thinking about money that is.  As you can see from the video above, 1,000,000,000,000 (only an extra three zero’s) is an amount that many of us (including me) can’t get our heads around.

For example, if I said that a I miscalculated an amount I owed from 1.35 trillion to 1.5 trillion, it doesn’t sound like very much does it.  I mean, what’s .15 trillion after all?  Nothing much really, is it………………….is it?

.15 trillion (in your currency of choice) is 150 BILLIONS!  Or put another way, it’s 150 thousand MILLONS!  Now, with one hundred and fifty-thousand MILLIONS, I could buy a lot of stuff………….unless it’s in Zimbabwean Dollars that is, in which case it might by me a dozen eggs (bad joke).

Other Numbers

Here’s something else interesting I learned while I was researching numbers; Walmart is the single largest private EMPLOYER in the U.S!  Yep, Walmart employs approximately 1.5 MILLION people, most of them full-time.  What is that in relation to the available U.S. workforce?  Well, the current available workforce in the U.S. is approximately 150 million; that’s people who are prepared to work, even if currently a LARGE proportion of that 150 million is looking for work.

So, ONE private company, Walmart, employs 1% of the entire U.S. workforce.  Pretty amazing isn’t it.

The moral of this is simple; start putting things INTO PERSPECTIVE.  Compare things.  Compare your life and lifestyle with others around the world, and around the country.  You’ll realize you’re not so badly off after all.

Luke.

P.S. The single largest employer in the U.S. is the government, employing 30 Million people (that’s 20% of the workforce).  If you click the image below, you’ll be taken to a 50 minute recording of David McAlvany discussing some interesting statistics.