Saturday, February 19, 2011

Toward Centillion Dollar Deficits: How Big Can They Get?

I never knew the number after one trillion.  Until the Bush and Obama administrations there was little need for the trillion number.  I suspect only mathematicians, physicists and astronomers needed to know their names.   Now, trillion dollar deficits are routine, and the federal government is gearing up its printing press to go even further.  Soon, we will see quadrillion dollar deficits.  But what comes after quadrillion?

I looked up the names of numbers on Wikipedia. It won't be too long before we see centillion dollar deficits (10 to the 303rd power; in contrast one trillion is 10 to the 12th power).

From Wikipedia:
Name Short scale
(U.S. and
modern British)
Long scale
(continental Europe,
archaic British, and India)
Authorities
AHD4[1] COD[2] OED2[3] OEDnew[4] RHD2[5] SOED3[6] W3[7] UM[8]
Million 106 106
Milliard 109
Billion 109 1012
Billiard 1015
Trillion 1012 1018
Quadrillion 1015 1024
Quintillion 1018 1030
Sextillion 1021 1036
Septillion 1024 1042
Octillion 1027 1048
Nonillion 1030 1054
Decillion 1033 1060
Undecillion 1036 1066
Duodecillion 1039 1072
Tredecillion 1042 1078
Quattuordecillion 1045 1084
Quindecillion (Quinquadecillion) 1048 1090
Sexdecillion (Sedecillion) 1051 1096
Septendecillion 1054 10102
Octodecillion 1057 10108
Novemdecillion (Novendecillion) 1060 10114
Vigintillion 1063 10120
Centillion 10303 10600

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want to cut spending, how can we compete with the Chinese and renew the infrastructure of our country.

Mitchell Langbert said...

Ha, ha. I take it you're joking. How about cutting the 70% of the federal budget that is pure waste?

Anonymous said...

Hey Anonymous,
How about 10% cut right now across the board no exceptions other than border security and defense. And then another 10% cut across the board every year for the next three years other than border security and defense. Border security and defense get a 5% increase now, and another 5% increase for all of the remaining 3 years. Oh, and no more Vaca's for the Obama's. No more $ for the fake "Global warming green agenda", and fire all the Obama zars making kudo dollars! That's just for starts.