David Prychitko reminds us "there are a million millions in a trillion." True only if you use the short system of measuring large numbers. Those of us who collect old European paper monies are familiar with the words milliard and billiard. And even more confusing is this note, which has the B in the corner. The B represents a re-denomination of the pengo note. This one is from 1946 and was never released to the public. It would have been worth a trillion of the original wartime pengo. Of course this all happened due to Hungary's extreme hyperinflation. But that would be trillion in the long sense -- for those of us in America, it would have equaled 1 quintillion original pengos.

So I find myself wondering -- if America used the million, milliard, billion, billiard long form, would we view the current amount of spending in government with more trepidation or less?

Origins from Wiki.

Labels: economics, inflation, money