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How much is a trillion?

CNN's Christine Romans speaks to a math expert to break down how big a trillion dollars is.

American Morning, the most news in the morning. Weekdays 6 ET.

OK, a million dollars is a lot of money, a billion dollars is a thousand million, and a trillion is a thousand billion. Johnny Curnon is here with me.

A little gut-check, just how big a trillion dollars is? It’s got twelve zeros, that’s easy to understand. Or think of it this way. One trillion one dollar bills stacked tight would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space, one third of the way to the moon. Republicans are hardly over the moon.

“ If you’d started spending the day that Jesus was born, and you spend a million dollars every single day, you still wouldn’t have spent a trillion dollars. ”

“We checked the senator’s numbers with noted mathematician John Allen Paulos. A million dollars a day for two thousand years is only about three quarters of a trillion dollars. It’s, it’s a number no matter how you slice it. ”

So let’s slice it another way.

A million seconds is about 11.5 days, a billion seconds is about 32 years, and a trillion seconds is 32,000 years. Well, people tend to lump them together perhaps because they rhyme.

Million, billion, the national debt tops 10 trillion. After a 700 billion dollar bank rescue, and proposed 800 billion dollar stimulus, are we numb?

“Number itself can be parsed 'number' or 'numb-er' and maybe in this case the latter is a better pronunciation. ”

“One million dollars?! ”

Just like Dr. Evil discovered in the movie Austin Powers, times have changed. Back in 1993,

“Immediate package of jobs, investments of over 30 billion dollars”, he didn’t get it.

Just last year, “So the whole purpose of the stimulus package is to have something robust enough to make a difference”.

President Bush signed an emergency economic stimulus of a now paltry 168 billion dollars. And now, “A trillion, a trillion, a trillion, a trillion dollars.” Can we afford it?

“The Gross National Product is, you know, 12 trillion dollars. Whatever it is, we do have a big economy that may not be as vibrant as it was, but it’s still a powerful economic engine. So knock on wood, we’ll see what happens. ”

Knock on wood, we’ll see what happens. The stimulus probably won’t reach a trillion, but consider this, all the financial interventions, the loans, the guarantees, the bailouts, the rescues, there’re now more than 7 trillion dollars. Johnny Curon, 7 trillion, let’s turn around, wrap our heads around that.

VOCABULARY

1. gut-check a test of one's nerve, courage, or determination

2. stack v.堆叠n.堆, 一堆, 堆栈

3. noted adj.著名的

4. lump together vt.放在一起,组合在一起

5. national debt n.国债

6. parse vt.解析n.分列

7. paltry adj.不足取的, 无价值的, 琐碎的, 下贱的

8. Gross National Product n.国民生产总值(=GNP)

9. knock on wood vi. 但愿老走这种好运 摸摸木头

10. guarantees n.抵押品

11. bailout A rescue from financial difficulties:紧急融资

文本参考中文翻译

CNN记者Christine Romans采访一位数学家，为大家解析一万亿美元到底有多少。

这里是美国早安节目，这里是早新闻。

好的，一百万美元是很多钱，十亿美元是1000个一百万，一兆是10000个亿。现在跟我在一起的是Johnny Curnon。

这是需要一点勇气的，一兆美元是多少？总共有12个零，这很容易理解。也可以这样想，如果每张是1美元，一兆美元将向太空中延伸68，000英里，相当于地球距月球距离的三分之一。共和党人不想到达地球。

“如果从耶稣出生的那天起，你每天花费100万美元，到现在为止你也还没有花完一兆美元。”

“我们与著名的数学家John Allen Paulos一起核算了这个数字，每天花费100万美元，连续花2000年，也才相当于一兆美元的四分之三。无论怎么算，都是这么大的数字。”

让我们按照另一种方式分解一下。

一百万秒大约是11.5天，十亿秒大约是32年，一兆秒就是32，000年。人们将这几个词放在一起可能因为他们押韵。

百万，十亿，国债高达十兆。经历了7000亿美元的银行援助方案和总统提出的8000亿美元刺激经济计划之后，难道我们都麻木了？

“Number这个词本身就可以理解为‘Number’或者‘Numb-er’（更加麻木）。或许在这个事件中，按照后者拼写更好。”

“100万美元？！”

就像在电影Austin Powers中Dr. Evil发现的那样，时代变了。回到1993年，“立即增加就业机会，增加超过300亿美元的投资，”但是该提议没有通过。

就在去年，“经济刺激计划的所有目的就是为了支撑经济状况有所好转。”

布什总统签署了1680万美元的紧急经济援助计划，对现在来说微不足道。现在，动不动就是“一兆美元，一兆美元，一兆美元。”我们能负担的起吗？

“你知道，我们的国民生产总值是12兆美元。不管是多少吧，我们已经不再是过去那个充满活力的巨大经济体了，但是我们仍然是一个强大的经济体。所以，希望好运继续，我们将拭目以待。”

希望好运继续，我们将拭目以待。该经济刺激计划可能不会达到一兆美元，但是想一下，所有的金融投资，贷款，抵押，援助，救市，已经超过7兆美元了。Johnny Curon，让我们转过头，再算算那是多大的数字吧！