$1 Trillion

When did you become aware of the term $1 Trillion? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

The word trillion comes from the French tri- (three) and -illion (from million). Jehan Adam first coin the word in 1475 as trimillion and this was later adjusted in 1484 by Nicolas Choquet to tryllion.

But how much is a trillion. Let me put it in context. If you take $1,000 bills and build a single stack you get the following results:

A $1 Million stack of $1,000 bills would measure 4 inches high.

A $1 Billion stack would measure 358 feet tall.

A $1 Trillion stack would stand 67.9 Miles high.

Now think about the national debt being $11 Trillion and climbing.

National Debt

We reached a major milestone over the last week: the National Debt now stands at $11 Trillion. With another $1 Trillion about to be added I thought it might be interesting to see who owns the US national debt. You might be surprised. In reverse order:

15. Luxemburg: $87 Billion (B)
14. Depository Institutions - US Banks, Savings Banks, Credit Unions: $107B
13. Russia: $120B
12. UK: $124B
11. Insurance Companies: $126B
10. Brazil: $133B
9. Caribbean Banking Centers: $177B
8. Oil Exporters - Venezuela, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lybia, Ecuador: $186B
7. Other Private Investors: $413B
6. Pension Funds: $456B
5. State & Local Government: $550B
4. Japan: $639B
3. China: $740B
2. Mutual Funds: $769B

Drum roll please. And the winner is:

1. The Federal Reserve: $4.8 Trillion (although another $1T is about to be added to this number).

So much for the theory that the Chinese and Japanese own the country. Although at a combined $1.38 Trillion they own 12.5% of the national debt.

I'm Back

Been insanely busy at work over the last few weeks and fell behind on the blog. Will catch up this week. The focus will be on the economy.

The 90/10 Thought

Spoke at both services again this morning on what it means to be part of a transformational community. Still very much challenged by the question: can the 90 look after the 10?

Simply can't be done unless a transformation takes place at the individual level first.  Three thousand people on the day of Pentecost where changed and one aspect of this change was that none had need.

Not communism or socialism at work where people feel coerced into action, but a voluntary response from individuals whose lives had been radically altered.

So what does this mean for me? 

Wall Street CEO Pay

Can you imagine living on a base pay of only $500,000 per annum? A number of years ago CEO pay was 24 times the pay of the average worker. Last year the multiple had soared to 275 times. Core to this country is the belief that a honest day's work deserves a fair wage.

Is $10,000 per week a fair wage for a CEO? How about $2,000 per day?

While families are losing their homes, workers are losing their jobs, and taxpayers are footing the bill for the enormous errors on Wall Street, it would be nice to see bank executives accustomed to $20 million incomes share in the suffering. That is, if you think making $500,000 is suffering.

The down side is that many of the banking leaders will leave the newly nationalized banking industry and for more lucrative positions elsewhere. Depending on your view this may or may not be a good thing.

I think integrity demands that they stay and clean up the mess they created. Maybe a goodwill gesture of $1 annual pay until the mess is fixed would restore their reputations.

I think Obama is doing the right thing forcing the issue. It is a shame that they couldn't work it out for themselves. Poor things.

Rogonomics

My friend Roger is getting himself into trouble by stating the obvious in too candid a way. Have we become so desperate that we do not care how much money the government borrows? We buy from China. They take our dollars, say 'thank you' and then lend our dollars back to us. If the Chinese economy starts falling apart and they have to start raising cash, I would not be surprised if they started calling in the loans from the US government. Wow, that would be a problem.

Has anyone ever successfully borrowed ever increasing amounts of money and managed to get themselves out of debt? Probably not, so why does everyone think this is a great strategy for the government?

Roger, I don't think you are that far off the mark. Hold your ground.

What is going on?

Am I the only person that thinks there is something wrong with giving the banks billions of dollars and zero accountability? It is the same people criticizing on the hill today that approved the package in the first place. Politicians are incredible. Teflon, as in nothing sticks.

One CEO stated today that despite receiving $25 billion, his bank lent the same amount of money in Q4 2008 as they did in the prior year.  what happened to the $25 billion?

And the answer is.....