4/85Number of beer cans manufactured since they were introduced in 1935: 610,000,000,000
6/03Amount by which total U.S. personal debt in 2002 exceeded total disposable income: $628,000,000,000
5/07Amount that Alan Greenspan reportedly received for the February 26 speech in which he warned of a recession: $150,000
Total value that U.S. stock markets lost the next day, partly as a result of his warning: $632,000,000,000
2/07Total oil revenues that have flowed into Nigeria since 1974: $728,500,000,000
8/84Estimated world military expenditures for 1984: $970,000,000,000
6/04Amount by which total Social Security contributions since 1983 exceed total benefit payments since then: $999,059,000,000
4/02Amount that U.S. companies are projected to write off this year to account for devalued acquisitions: $1,000,000,000,000
8/03Amount the Defense Department has lost track of, according to a 2000 report by its inspector general: $1,100,000,000,000
This amount to the rest of the world’s military budgets combined: 2:1
8/95Estimated number of bug zappers required to kill all the insects in the world: 1,104,120,000,000
6/04Decimal places to which Japanese scientists have estimated pi: 1,241,100,000,000
1/85Number of pieces of paper processed by American businesses in 1981: 850,000,000,000
12/87Dollar value of all international trade in 1986: $2,000,000,000,000
11/08Estimated value of U.S. economic growth lost due to the global credit crisis: $2,000,000,000,000
7/84Grains of sand on the surface of New York’s Jones Beach: 2,230,000,000,000
11/03Total U.S. military spending the Bush Administration projects it will have spent by the end of 2008: $3,200,000,000,000
Total U.S. military spending between 1941 and 1948: $3,100,000,000,000
1/88Total amount of spending Congress approved from 1982 to 1987: $5,358,000,000,000
Total amount of spending Ronald Reagan requested from 1982 to 1987: $5,252,000,000,000
6/98Total value of all Japanese capital held in no-interest savings accounts or cash: $5,544,889,025,400
10/08Estimated total cost, over ten years, of the official tax policies laid out by McCain’s campaign: $4,200,000,000,000
Estimated total cost of the tax policies proposed by McCain in his public speeches: $7,000,000,000,000
5/89Estimated market value of all real estate in Tokyo: $8,000,000,000,000
Estimated market value of all real estate and public corporations in the United States: $8,000,000,000,000
1/09Estimated amount Bush-era policies will cost the U.S. in new debt and accrued obligations: $10,350,000,000,000
6/07Grant that NASA has given an Arizona astronomer to study how to block solar rays with a cloud of small spacecraft: $70,000
Number of two-foot-wide spacecraft he says would be required: 16,000,000,000,000
12/87Dollar value of all international capital transfers in 1986: $30,000,000,000,000
11/00Estimated number of hours of labor performed by African-American slaves between 1619 and 1865: 222,505,049
Estimated value of that labor, compounded at 6 percent interest through 1993: $97,100,000,000,000
8/91Estimated number of grains of sand in one acre of beach: 2,000,000,000,000,000
3/08Number of Hurricane Katrina–relief claims filed by individuals to the U.S. government that have exceeded $1 billion: 232
Dollar value of the largest claim: $3,000,000,000,000,000
12/95Size of an iceberg that separated from Antarctica last January, in ice cubes: 70,000,000,000,000,000
11/94Percentage change during 1993 in the inflation rate in Serbia: +363,000,000,000,000,000