What does 1 Trillion look like?

With the financial crisis and the responses by US government to inject a trillion here and another trillion there, it may seem like a trillion is just a slightly bigger number that we’ve become used to. PageTutor helps us visualize the difference –

$10,000

$1 million

1 billion

1 trillion (the pallets from the 1 billion shown above are double stacked)

So…a trillion is really a lot of money! And, personally I was quite surprised at how small a $1 million pile can be – I’ve always have this image of at least a duffel-bag full of bills to qualify for a million – perhaps just influenced by the typical cop-and-robber movies.