In my youth, ten thousand dollars was a lot of money and hearing about "common" folks with a net worth of over one-hundred thousand dollars was rare indeed. There were always the Rockerfellers, the Hursts, Firestones, and others with assets exceeding our wildest imaginations. Government budgets were being measured in terms of tens of millions (that is one and 7-zeros).
In the mid 60's the ceiling of a quarter million dollars for personal net worth was struck and Government budgets were beginning to reach one hundred million (one and 8-zeros).
In the 70's a half million dollar personal net worth was not uncommon and Government budgets were reaching half a billion (five and 8-zeros).
It took a decade or two but in the 90's a few INDIVIDUALS
had reached the personal net worth of over a billion dollars (one and 9-zeros).
What is one million dollars any more? You have heard that amount spoken so often it is common and its mystic has worn off. "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", the Power Ball lottery, Vegas, Television all combined numb our minds.
Personal net worths have reached the Billion dollar and ten billion dollar ceilings (one and 10-zeros), and for one or two individuals the one hundred Billion dollar ceiling (one and 11-zeros).
Today, the Government is branding about with Trillion dollar deficits
and Trillion dollar budgets (one and 12-zeros).
We dont even measure hugh amounts like we did with smaller ones adding "ten" and "one hundred" and "one thousand" as prefixes to HUGE amounts.
Here is how it looks:
10^2........100....................................One Hundred
10^3........1,000.................................One Thousand
10^4........10,000................................Ten Thousand
10^5........100,000..............................One Hundred Thousand
10^6........1,000,000...........................One Million
10^7........10,000,000..........................Ten Million
10^8........100,000,000........................One Hundred Million
10^9........1,000,000,000......................One Billion [or
One Thousand Million]
10^10......10,000,000,000....................Ten Billion [or
Ten Thousand Million]
10^11......100,000,000,000...................One Hundred Billion [or
One Hundred Thousand Million]
10^12......1,000,000,000,000................One Trillion [or
One Million Million]
My hand is raised, I need to be excused, my brain is full...