What’s the difference between a billion and a trillion? We have an intuitive sense of the value of money when it comes in amounts we encounter in everyday life. The sudden loss or gain of £5, £500, £5000 is an event we can imagine and feel. But once we get into large numbers, we lose… Read more »
I have written before about giving numbers bite, getting big figures across without producing glazed expressions. The FT had two brilliant examples yesterday on the ‘shutdown’ of the US federal government. $7 billion, the amount in dispute, was alternatively: 1) dollar bills laid out, stretching as far as the moon, three times over. 2) the… Read more »