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Man's personal debt more than US national debt

Oh boy
Thursday, 6 December 2007, 15:38

A GUY GOT A LETTER from his bank which said he owed them some money after he closed the account.

The bill was to the tune of $211 trillion.

This is more than the US national debt, just.

The Wachovia Bank obviously has some problems with its zeroes, according to this site.

It told him not send any cents, just the $211 trillion he owed it. µ

* INQBLOT A British billion is different from an American billion. But it is still a lot of zeroes. And as to the crore and the lakh - well that's a different story altogether.

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Comments
No way, really?

I never knew that about the billion thing. That really boggles my mind. 

posted by : Kevin Bleeblebix, 06 December 2007 Complain about this comment
Cool

Now they know who is to blame for that ever growing US national debt.

posted by : Snoopy, 07 December 2007 Complain about this comment
No . . Not really

Actually the British million is rarely used now. Like so many other things here in Britain, we have adopted the American version.

How long before we spell colour without the 'u'?

USA: 1,000,000,000 = 1 Billion
UK: 1,000,000,000,000 = 1 Billion (although not really since about 1950!)


posted by : John, 07 December 2007 Complain about this comment
urban myth

noone uses british billion may as well be an urban myth

posted by : ben, 07 December 2007 Complain about this comment
We did it

We in the UK used to spell Colour as Color.

After the Colony went to set up America, a new dictionary came out in the UK and blow, did not everyone like its new french-based spelling of words!

So color became colour amongst a pile of other words.

So technically the Americans spell their words in the original version and it was we in the UK that changed.

Still doesn't explain why they call a Torch a Flashlight or a Lift an Elevator though. ;-)





posted by : Stuart Halliday, 07 December 2007 Complain about this comment
Silly billion

I live in a country where we don't use body parts for measuring, and a US billion is what call a milliard. One milliard is one thousand millions. One thousand milliards is one billion - the same way the british saw it before they started watching american television.

posted by : Espen T., 10 December 2007 Complain about this comment
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