Legal Commentary

Did you know that you can track the US debt to the penny daily through a US Treasury website?  Today the total was $9,788,080,661,828.23.  And we may hit 10 trillion plus as the Treasury funds its bailout package through sale of Treasuries.  I'd trade the accuracy (do we need really need to know  about the 23 cents?) for more information about what is included: for instance, does the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affect this number?

Now we need to translate into something that can help us picture it.  Let's see ... McDonald's apple pies?  If $700 billion = 2000 McDonald's apple pies per US resident, then today's federal debt is almost 28,000 McDonald's apple pies per US resident.  (Yes, even lawyers sometimes deal with numbers, contrary to my students' belief.)

Here's an image from John Allen Paulos' excellent book, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences: "It takes only eleven and a half days for a million seconds to pass, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass." And a trillion? Yikes.