How to understand a trillion

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Indicators are all around us — but do we really understand these numbers' size and what they mean? Today, a data teacher gives us some tips on how to put these figures into perspective.

Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:09.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.8	I'm Stacy Vannick Smith.
0:15.3	And I'm Darym Woods.
0:16.3	And I don't know about you Stacy, but it feels like every day we're just like overflowing
0:21.0	with numbers.
0:22.0	Yes.
0:23.0	I do also feel this way.
0:24.2	Yes.
0:25.2	I mean, whether it's the price of gasoline as we're driving down the street or these
0:29.8	big macro indicators that you might read in the new safer like global GDP.
0:33.8	I don't know.
0:34.8	Jobs numbers, inflation.
0:36.0	I know.
0:37.0	So many numbers.
0:38.0	You'll don the 10 year T-note.
0:40.0	You know, they're everywhere these numbers.
0:41.9	And of course, the problem is like it can be hard to keep them straight or really even
0:45.6	just like appreciate what they mean.
0:48.2	You know, as humans, we're not necessarily born-knowing statistics.
0:51.9	And it becomes like this second language to understand what these numbers mean or to
0:55.7	understand the context of them.
	...

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