A Billion

It's so easy to become overwhelmed or jaded by the numbers the government, economists and the financial industry throw around. For example, what is a billion dollars exactly... have you ever thought about that? I mean we hear that number thrown around almost every night on the news.

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The U.S. even has 536 billionaires in 2015 (yes, Bill Gates once again took the title of the world's wealthiest individual). Have you ever sat down and actually tried to get your arms around what that number means?

Here are some examples of what a billion means:

• One billion seconds is about 31 and a half years.
• One billion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower almost 870 miles high.
• If you earn $45,000 a year, it would take 22,000 years to amass a fortune of one billion dollars.
• One billion dollars divided equally among the U.S. population would mean that everyone in the United States would receive about $3.33.

Now that you have a grasp of what that number means, the U.S. budget deficit (defined as the total amount spent by Congress and the revenue received by the Internal Revenue Service) is currently $497 billion.

Staggering numbers to comprehend.