this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Because numbers are becoming so large its almost pointless to think about. The national debt for example is 33 trillion dollars. That is an unimaginable sum. What even is 33 trillion dollars?
In Korea, 1000₩ is about $1 (USD).
Your rent could be 200,000* units per month. So it's basically a factor of 100, but for cents instead of dollars.
Yet shopping was still a whole lot easier because if the price said 1000₩, you paid 1000₩, no questions asked. Unlike in the US, where your $1.00 coffee gets $0.10 added for tax, $0.25 added for the tip, so even though the menu says $1.00, the actual cost to the customer is $1.35.
The problem isn't that the numbers are big. The problem is that you're trying to think about national numbers from the perspective of an individual.
500 miles might not be far for a pilot, but it would be for a jogger. We don't need to shorten the units to make it easier for the jogger to understand 500 miles. (0.5 kilomiles! Lol)
*EDIT: Fixed the scale. I've been working with Japanese Yen which is a factor of 10, but KRW is a factor of 100 like I said...but mathed wrong. Lol
Right, but I figure that making, say, the national debt, at least somewhat more understandable to the average individual, would, at least hopefully, make the average individual hold the government accountable for absolutely uncontrollable spending. as is people just don't care because the numbers are so unfathomable that they are like fuck it
I think this is a different issue than big numbers.
I have zero mechanisms available to me to reign in national spending anyway. If the debt were $10 dollars, that'd still be the case. But even if I did, the national debt doesn't affect me in the slightest, why should I care if it's $10 or $10T?
Fair. Eventually the us will enter a debt spiral and the average person will be living on the street eating 1 meal a day and shooting politicians for fucking everything up. However, just revaluing the currency does not solve that problem. That is a bigger, more systemic issue.