A BIG NUMBER (2)

Some eighteen months ago, I wrote a post mentioning the word trillion, and pointing out how that rather large number was beginning to sneak its way, not into everyday parlance as such, but at least into the appendices of budget documents issued by the British Treasury.

Since then, we have had the debate about raising the U.S. federal debt ceiling, which is over US$14 trillion, and lots of plans for raising or cutting trillions from federal revenues or spending programmes.

The latest people to get in on the act are European finance ministers and officials, who are apparently putting together a plan to increase the size of the bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, from Euro440 billion to Euro2 trillion. 

As I said earlier, a trillion, or 1,000,000,000,000, is a very large number indeed. My prediction is that by the end of this decade, it will have become commonplace.

Walter Blotscher