What is $16 Trillion?

Today, 4 September 2012, the US National debt climbed past $16,000,000,000,000 (sixteen trillion dollars).  What is that?  How can you come to grips with a number like that?  Maybe this will help.

$16 buys a good lunch

$160 buys some nice shoes

$1,600 buys a very nice TV

$16,000 buys a small car

$160,000 buys most people in the Southern US a house

$1,600,000 is more than what most people make in their entire lifetime of 40 years of work

$16,000,000 is about the cost of one F-16 fighter aircraft or a platoon of 5 M1 Abrams tanks

$160,000,000 (one hundred sixty million) is what the 2008 Obama Inauguration cost

$1,600,000,000 (1.6 billion) is about the GDP of the Republic of Burundi in Africa, population 9 million people

$16,000,000,000 (16 billion) is about what it cost to design, build and fit the latest and greatest US aircraft (USS Gerald R. Ford, still in the docks being made, next to the new USS JFK)

$160,000,000,000 (160 billion) is the total value of the most valuable corporation in the world, Apple Computer.

$1,600,000,000,000: (1.6 trillion) The total goods and services in the state of California per year (GDP), the 8^th largest economy in the world, with a population of 37.7 million people (and an unmanageable debt of its own...but that's a different story.)

$16,000,000,000,000: (16 trillion) That’s 1,000 fully equipped brand spanking new top of the line aircraft carriers.  Or, that’s $51,000 for each and every one of the 311 million US citizens.

Here's an article if you want to read the Boston Globe's report on the news.

The world is watching the EU's debtor nations pull the Euro community off a cliff.  With debt levels like this, and growing constantly, how long will it be before the US falls into the same abyss?