You're listening to a more or less podcast from the BBC. For more information about the program,

please go to the website bbc.co.uk slash radio4.

Hello and if you're listening to our Sunday repeat, happy new year. This is a special edition

of more or less and it'll serve as a guide to interesting, informative or just plain idiosyncratic

numbers of the year. The credit crunch and the continuing financial crisis have made really big

numbers a familiar part of our news bulletins and everyday language. Billions and trillions are

tossed around as though they're just a step away from each other but a couple of letters makes

all the difference. After all, there are a thousand billions in each trillion and roll over trillions

as a new kid on the block. My number of the year is a quadrillion.

That is a thousand trillions or one followed by 15 zeros.

Not a number that many of us would have had come across especially in the context of the total

amount of debt because that's when this number which is rarely used was first raised.

It's a number mentioned just recently by a Japanese vice minister when he was talking about the

level to which Japanese government debt could climb. He forecasted that by March of next year the

total amount of government debt in Japan could exceed a quadrillion. Now let me make it clear

that is in Japanese yen so in dollar terms it's about 13.8 trillion and that number is astounding

and it is more than twice the size of the entire Japanese economy.

But I suppose for me we've now gotten to a place where the amount of public sector debt

is being expressed in numbers that we would have never come across before. It's symptomatic

of some of the ailments afflicting the world economy right now.

Another couple of numbers which I think captures this very well which is the median debt to GDP ratio

of developed economies versus developing economies. If you take the G20 you break them up into

...