“Trillion is the new billion”
‘Trillion is the new billion” became popular in September-October 2008, after a financial meltdown. A federal Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) was established to save America’s financial institutions, with over $700 billion allocated for just the first phase. The financial numbers of the federal budget (and federal budget deficit) became so staggeringly large that “trillion is the new billion” became the financial buzz phrase of 2008-2009.
The phrase form of “X is the new Y” has long been popular in the fashion world (for example, “X is the new black”). Ben Zimmer’s 2006 Language Log post traced the origin of the saying to Diana Vreeland.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: tril·lion
Pronunciation: \ˈtri(l)-yən\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from tri- + -illion (as in million)
Date: 1690
1 — see number table
2 : an indeterminately large number “a trillion mosquitoes out tonight”
— trillion adjective
— tril·lionth \-yən(t)th\ adjective or noun
Language Log
December 28, 2006
On the trail of “the new black” (and “the navy blue”)
(...)
Posted by Benjamin Zimmer at December 28, 2006 05:10 PM
CafePress
TRILLION IS THE NEW BILLION (Bumper Sticker)
From JHN Designs
Runango Running Forum
By Taniabird Date 2006-12-12 9:52 AM
OMG, those sound so good! I love cranberry anything. I might have to make these this weekend.
Trillion is the new billion.
The Huffington Post: Ben Rosen
Explaining the Economic Crisis
Posted September 29, 2008 | 11:47 AM (EST)
(...)
New words to add to your crisis vocabulary
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“Trillion.” The late Senator Everett Dirksen is perhaps best remembered for his comment in the 1960s on the mushrooming government budget: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” (What would he think of $700 billion here, $700 billion there?) So for those who can’t comprehend what it a trillion is, it’s simple: a thousand thousand thousand thousand. That doesn’t help? Well, think of it this way. Those of us who are aging like to pretend that 50 is the new 30, and 70 is the new 50. So try this: trillion is the new billion.
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Newsgroups: soc.retirement
From: Rumpelstiltskin
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:22:20 GMT
Local: Sun, Oct 5 2008 9:22 pm
Subject: “trillion is the new billion”
I liked that phrase, “trillion is the new billion”, heard from Sordo’s loathed Eleanor Clift that I heard on McLaughlin today (taped Friday).
Yahoo! Message Boards: Israeli Palestinian Conflict
Amoscoh
1 trillion seconds 32,000 years.
13-Oct-08 03:34 am
HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL INHERTI THIS:
Debt:
http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=68…
Here’s something: Between the stock market peak of Oct. 9, 2007, and exactly one year later _ which is to say, encompassing the Wall Street free fall _ $8.3 trillion was vaporized.
Write it out and it looks like a spill on the Cheerios aisle: $8,300,000,000,000.
And that’s still less than the national debt: $10,200,700,000,000 and growing.
That’s right: Trillion is the new billion.
Los Angeles (CA) Times
Trillion: It’s the new billion
The federal dollars being tossed in amid the financial crisis have altered the shock value of high numbers.
By Erin Mcclam
October 13, 2008
There’s an old saying attributed to Everett Dirksen, the Illinois senator who dotted his speeches with colorful rants against government borrowing: A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Vanity Fair
Trillion Is the New Billion
by Dee Dee Myers February 6, 2009, 9:30 AM
How much is a billion?
When I was a kid, it used to seem like a huge number, somewhere between a zillion and infinity.
A billion seconds is just shy of a lifetime, more than 63 years. A billion pounds is roughly 500,000 tons—or 200,000 SUVS all piled together. And a billion dollars stacked one on top of another would reach 67.9 miles into the sky. Laid end-to-end, those same billion dollars would wrap nearly four times four times around the earth. In other words, it’s real money.
FOXNews.com
Trillion: It’s Now the New Billion
The Obama administration last month unveiled its $3.6 trillion budget for next year—a number that easily keeps the federal deficit north of $1 trillion dollars.
Friday, March 06, 2009
New York (NY) Times blogs - The Opinionator
March 19, 2009, 11:56 am
‘Trillion Is the New Billion’: The Fed Cranks Its Chopper
By Eric Etheridge
In its latest effort to resolve the ongoing economic crisis, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday it would buy $1 trillion in mortgages and Treasuries. As the Times report explains, buying securities in this manner is “a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air.” In addition, the size of the plan announced yesterday represents a near “doubling all of the Fed’s measures in the last year.”