Tag: Real Eyes

A-Trillion-Pt-2B-Best-Of.mp3
A-Trillion-Pt-2B-Best-Of.mp4
A-Trillion-Pt-2.mp3
A-Trillion-Pt-2.mp4
A-Trillion-Pt-2B-B.mp3
A-Trillion-Pt-2B-B.mp4
A-Trillion-Pt-2B.mp3
A-Trillion-Pt-2B.mp4
A-Trillion-intro.mp3
A-Trillion.mp3
A-Trillion.mp4

[Intro]
1, 2, 3
(Let’s see….)

[Verse 1]
Spending faster than we can count
(Totally a staggering amount)
Circling the earth again and again
(How to count… where to begin?)

[Bridge]
A trillion mistakes
(Our race at stake)

[Chorus]
Why don’t you count the amount
For the next million years
Cause the end of what you spend
Alleviate our fears

[Verse 2]
Spending hand over fist
(With a fatal twist)
Pile high to the sky
(Try to count it… try, try, try)

[Chorus]
Why don’t you count the amount
For the next million years
Cause the end of what you spend
Alleviate our fears

[Outro]
A trillion mistakes
(Our race at stake)
Take, take, take
(More than we make)

——— Part 2 B—————

[Verse 1]
Spending faster on our disaster
(A staggering amount… can you count?)
Circling the earth ’round n’ ’round
(Is our accounting sound?)

[Bridge]
A trillion mistakes
(Our race at stake)

(Count out loud!)
1, 2, 3
(Count with me)
… 6, 7, 8
(Too late to debate)

[Chorus]
Why don’t you count the amount
For the next million years
Cause the end of what you spend
Alleviate our fears

[Verse 2]
Spending well beyond our means
(Scenes of obscene)
The height of the bills
(Higher than the hills)

[Outro]
A trillion mistakes
(Our race at stake)
Take, take, take
(More than we make)

ABOUT THE SONG
At seventeen, I was a freshman studying economics at West Chester University. At the time, the national debt of the United States was $827 billion. In a course on fiscal spending and debt, we discussed how short-term political interests are difficult to account for in economics. I suggested that anyone authorizing government spending should be required to physically count each dollar before it could be spent. This would ensure that a politician would spend the rest of their life counting the money—long before they could ever spend it. (If you counted eight hours a day, seven days a week, it would take roughly 190 years to reach 1 billion.)

In August of 2025, the US federal debt is 37 trillion dollars. In January 2020, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that gross federal debt would not surpass $37 trillion until after fiscal year 2030.

1. Weight of $37 trillion in $1 bills

• A single U.S. $1 bill weighs about 1 gram.

• There are 1,000,000,000,000,000 / 1 = 37,000,000,000,000 bills. Wait—we should calculate carefully:

Step 1: Number of $1 bills in $37 trillion:

37 trillion dollars=37×1012 dollars37\,\text{trillion dollars} = 37 \times 10^{12} \text{ dollars} 37trillion dollars=37×1012 dollars

So there are 37 trillion $1 bills.

Step 2: Total weight:

$$37,000,000,000,000\text{ bills}\times 1\text{ gram per bill}=37,000,000,000,000\text{ grams}$$

Convert grams to metric tons:

$$37,000,000,000,000\text{ g}÷1,000,000\text{ g/ton}=37,000,000\text{ tons}$$

That’s 37 million metric tons—roughly the weight of all the cars in the U.S. several times over, or about 8 times the Great Pyramid of Giza in weight.

2. How far $37 trillion in $1 bills would circle the Earth

• A U.S. $1 bill is about 0.156 meters long.

• Total length:

$$37,000,000,000,000\text{ bills}\times 0.156\text{ m}=5,772,000,000,000\text{ m}$$

Convert to kilometers:

$$5,772,000,000,000\text{ m}÷1,000=5,772,000\text{ km}$$

• Circumference of the Earth ≈ 40,075 km.

$$5,772,000\text{ km}÷40,075\approx 144\text{ times around the Earth!}$$

Stacking $37 trillion in $1 bills end to end would circle the Earth 144 times.

3. Time to count $37 trillion in $1 bills

• Assume a person counts 1 bill per second continuously.

• Seconds in a year ≈ 31,536,000.

Step 1: Number of seconds needed:

$$37,000,000,000,000\text{ bills}÷1\text{ bill/sec}=37,000,000,000,000\text{ sec}$$

Step 2: Convert to years:

$$37,000,000,000,000÷31,536,000\approx 1,173,000\text{ years}$$

At 1 bill per second, it would take over 1.17 million years to count $37 trillion!

4. Height of $37 Trillion in $1 Bills

• Thickness of a U.S. $1 bill ≈ 0.11 mm (0.00011 meters).

• Total height if stacked:

$$37,000,000,000,000\text{ bills}\times 0.00011\text{ m/bill}=4,070,000,000\text{ meters}$$

• Convert to kilometers:

$$4,070,000,000\text{ m}÷1,000=4,070\text{ km}$$

That’s over 4,000 km tall, which is more than five times the cruising altitude of a commercial airplane (about 10 km), and ten times the height of Mount Everest (8.85 km).

• Another way to visualize it: a stack this high would extend from the Earth’s surface through the stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and into low Earth orbit, almost reaching satellites in orbit!

Trumpenomics: The Decline of the US

From the album “Real Eyes“