Watching the television news about the American debt battle in Congress, the wife turned and asked “What comes after a trillion dollars?”
The answer was immediate and regretted: “Confusion.”
We should have said “quadrillion” and let it go at that. Instead we got into a silly discussion of the differences in how Americans count. The problem is that the way Americans count, a billion is only a thousand million. In other systems, a billion is considered to be a million million which is a thousand times as much.
The rest of the world has had to go along with this Americanism but one is still best to check the number of zeros after a number to confirm.
But while that discussion can be considered spurious, hopefully politicians in the United States are now dealing with the possible. They have an annual budget running over three of their trillions of dollars per year which is a lot in anyone’s language. Their right-wing, small government advocates are asking them to start paring this down by an average of about US$20 billion per year which they might be able to do if they are not fighting too many foreign wars and the U.S. banking system cleans up its act.
But trying to balance the U.S. budget and finally gaining some cooperation will not make the foolish right-wing nuts like the Tea Party go away. We have the same problem in Canada with Toronto’s Ford Brothers and Johnny-one-notes such as Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. And in the meantime, we are on pins and needles waiting for the federal Harper Conservatives to decide where to strike.
Other than that, it really is a pretty summer. We are enjoying it. Hope you are too!
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