i would not be surprised if the fed announced tomorrow they'll be printing 1 trillion dollar bills like zimbabwe. It would greatly simplify the bailouts.
Some NYC real estate agents used to use a clever visual demonstration by laying out 10 - $100 notes in a 1-foot square, to show what $1000/sq. foot looked like. Some people can't visualize space very well, so it was an easy gimmick to use with some clients to help them understand the rates based on size of property they thought they could afford given their personal budget.
I believe they call that a co-op and such arrangements are common, though typically not on that minute of a scale, yet at least.
All you ever wanted to know about visualizing various amounts of money is here: http://xkcd.com/980/ Click on the image to go to a viewer that will let you see all the detail. Goes from one dollar to all the value that's ever been produced by humanity as a whole (something in the low quadrillions).
That's some crazy info-graphics right there. Thanks for the link. Here's a similar one for the world's gold: Numbersleuth - Gold Here's a similar one for one cent coins: Mega Penny Project
Great! There's not enough gold to back all that paper out there? Heck a trillion dollars is old news, we need to start thinking about bringing Quadrillion & Quintillion into the limelight... If you want to do something cool, print 10 to the power of 100 on a sheet of paper. (1 followed by 100 zeros) It's called a googol. ...and 10 to the power of a googol is a googolplex. Now that is a nutty number to think about!
Well, if this note were not just meant as a joke and more than likely a misunderstanding of the Federal Reserve banking system, were it real, it could fall into the Fed's concept of elastic currency. Not only can they expand the money supply but the Federal Reserve can also contract it. This function is in place to prevent bank runs to deal with ever changing economic conditions. Jokes like these notes only focus on the bad side of what it is perceived to mean and tend to overlook how the public and institutions may be protected in such a crisis. Just remember, that note is a fantasy note. While Zimbabwe more recently dealt with hyper-inflation, and a 100-trillion dollar bill was printed (the largest denomination EVER printed for use), it was still only worth about $5 (USD) at the time (in 2008), a value which was rapidly changing as they went through their economic crisis. After that nation abandoned their currency, where did they turn, to the U.S. dollar and South African Rand, and all transactions began in those more stable currencies.
Again, the private federal reserve is unconstitutional and GreatWalrus is doing his patriotic duty in joke form. LOL
