What’s in a Trillion (and a half)
Visualizing Mexico’s GDP
Mexico’s economy, by the measure of GDP, is $1,200,000,000 — US$1.2 trillion. On it’s own that’s an astronomical number (literally!). However, when we look at the GDP in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (how much stuff can you buy with that money), that number is US$1.8 trillion (2012 estimate), or the 12th highest in the world! That’s higher than Canada, Spain, and South Korea.
But just how much “stuff” can US$1.8 trillion buy? Just how much money is US$1.8 trillion? Let’s have a look.
Mint.com produced this visualization, that puts one trillion in terms of what it can be used for. Just think, in a year, Mexico’s economy produces enough to buy every company on the Toronto Stock Exchange twice over! Have a look.
That’s a great visual, but just how many dollars are we talking about here?
Well, if you had took all that money in $1 bills, and launched it into space, it would clump into a sphere (or “cashteroid”!) almost 1,000 ft (300m) across. Unfortunately, if our “cashteroid” were to fall back to earth, it would destroy an area about the size of Rhode Island.
What about in Hundreds?
Here’s 1 $100 bill.
Here’s a hundred of them (a “stack”)
Ten thousand $100 bills ($1,000,000)
One billion dollars, people for scale (no bananas were available)
And finally, $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000)
Take that, and add the total dollar value of US -> Mexico trade ($800,000,000,000), and you get Mexico’s GDP in Purchasing Power Parity.
That’s a lot of Benjamins.
