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I think it's the worst example. I very much doubt we will ever see the price of, say, a car approach a billion billion dollars (or cents). It's too many zeros f
by runeks 3y ago
I think it's the worst example. I very much doubt we will ever see the price of, say, a car approach a billion billion dollars (or cents). It's too many zeros for people to work with on a daily basis. I think what will happen is that, at regular intervals, the old hyper-inflated currency will be replaced with a new currency that's, say, 2^32 times less than the original one.
Besides, if you think a billion billions might be reached (64 bits) then why wouldn't a billion billion billion billions also be reached (128 bits)? 128 bits seems just as arbitrary as 64 bits in this context.
- jefftk 3y agoBefore 2009 would you have predicted that a 100 Trillion Dollar bill would never be issued by a central bank?
- RandomLensman 3y agoGermany had notes and stamps in the trillions Marks in 1924 - nothing new there
- ilyt 3y ago2^63 / 100 Trillion = 9.2E6 so even in this case you have few decimal positions left.
- zarzavat 3y agoYou may be overlooking the potential for someone to own more than one of those $100T bills. Apparently it was worth about 30 USD at the time.
- hot_gril 3y agoIf $100T = 30 USD, then probably nobody will mind if we round to the nearest $1B. Just like how I have no way to compensate someone for less than 0.01 USD.
- xypage 3y agoThe government cares, the precision necessary for taxes is sub cent as mentioned in some replies to the top comment on this post.
- cesarb 3y ago> It's too many zeros for people to work with on a daily basis. I think what will happen is that, at regular intervals, the old hyper-inflated currency will be replaced with a new currency that's, say, 2^32 times less than the original one. I lived through hyperinflation (in Brazil). What happened was that, at regular intervals, the old hyper-inflated currency was replaced with a new currency that's 10^3 times less than the original one. Cutting decimal zeros is better for humans, and three is convenient because it matches the usual three-digit grouping (that is, 123.450,00 becomes 123,45). This had to be done because, otherwise, calculators would become useless (most common pocket calculators had only eight digits).