craschworks

One of the reasons we get bad government policy is because people are bad at handling large numbers.  Our brains are just not evolved to deal with them.  That’s why visualizations like this are so helpful.   They make concrete the abstract concepts of a “billion” and “trillion”, and allow our brains to get some purchase on the amounts involved.  For example, here’s a picture of what one trillion dollars looks like.  While this page is designed to cater to fiscally conservative sensibilties (it’s designed to illustrate unfunded Medicare and Social Security liabilities), one could also make an equally compelling visualization of say, military spending.