$21 trillion! Can you imagine?

OK, two blog posts ago,  I promised to show how FREE MONEY could help us reduce our national debt--which now exceeds $21 TRILLION or $65,000 for every man, woman and child living in the United States. Sadly, true.

First, a basic question: How much is a trillion dollars? 

• If you were given $1 a second, in just 32 years of seconds, you would be a billionaire. But it would take an additional 31,000 years of seconds to become a trillionaire!
• If you stacked $1 bills, it would reach 60,000 miles into space.
• It would take 44,000 18-wheel, 25-ton trucks to transport $1 trillion.
• To cover our debt, 420 Bill Gates or 210 Jeff Bezos--before the divorce. (yep! There are people that rich.)

 So, as that number increases daily--with interest added--how are we ever going to get out of the hole? Well, we just have to start, and if we ever have enough years before the apocalypse, maybe we can make a dent.

And what better way than with free money? Two posts ago (scroll down or click here)  I showed you STEP ONE, how Dave (in the movie Dave) did it... cutting back on the many frivolous-sounding grants our government--some worthy, many not--makes to causes that often help them get re-elected. Money not spent counts double! That total in 2016  was 1/2 billion. (Don't laugh... it's a start.)

Now for the good stuff:

Step two: TSA reports that the pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters airline passengers forget to pick up from those big grey trays after going through airport check-ins, exceeded $1 million this past year. So $1 million for the next thousand years and we're talking real bucks.

Step three: A few entrepreneurs  have found $100 million in change in the wreckage of crushed cars we send to China as scrap. They buy the  ground up aluminum waste back from China, digs out the coins--many mangled and crushed-- and sell them back to our mint for their recycled value. The world number for lost change recycled is estimated to be as high as $50 billion!

Step four: Loose change in old sofa cushions and other places coins like to hide is estimated to be a number in the millions of dollars, not unbelievable when you figure that, as a nation of 350 million people, we have many millions of couches. What's your personal take?

Steps five through 12 you won't believe. but they are more real than the money saved in every "BIG PRESIDENT'S DAY (or week or month or any excuse for a sale) SALE... save hundreds of dollars." Perhaps theoretical but you get the idea. Just remember, many billionaires made their fortunes on theoretical ideas that worked.

Step five and beyond (thanks to Wall Street Journalist Joe Queenan who researched this in 2013): Harvard research estimated that sleep deprivation costs U.S businesses $63.2 billion a year (with no revenue to tax) in lost productivity.. WAKE UP WORKERS! We need the money

Step six: Cats cost us taxpayers $37.7 billion added in lost productivity due to work absences for owners to take their cats to the vets. And Dogs, perhaps double that.

Step seven thru 12 or 13 or more estimated by actual sources for some reason or another: Tweeting, $112 billion a year; transfurring vinyl LPs to MP3 format, $11.7 mil; Grumpy workers (Let a smile be your umbrella--NOT) $26.8 billion; time Americans spend listening to banjo music, $13.7 billion--not to mention piano, drums, sax, violas, harmonica,  etc; not carryng an umbrella, $35.6 million used as an excuse to not do this or that,;foolishly ingnoring maternal advice (mom told you so; $132.7 miliion annually, similarly not listening to dad, and we didn't even get to sneezing, itching, yawning, etc.

The list goes on and on, but hey, where is that American "Can Do" spirit that has always come through for us?

I actually feel better now knowing we can do--or not do in some cases--this. I just know Congress will lead the way.

God Bless America! REALLY, please!