Hello, I was talking to a person the other day, I could clearly see that the person could not understand what enomous amount is represented by the debt of countries like US or France. So I made this exercise , let's say we pile up quarters of the total amount of the debt , what volume would it make. For the US : about 7 times the volume of 1 tower of the former WTC. For France : in euro, would represent approximately the volume of the 2 principal pyramids of Gizeh, Kheops and the other, not the 3rd one. For the calculation i simply used the volume taken by 1 coin , either euro : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_coins or american quarters : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_%28United_States_coin%29 as if they piled in a square grid, this is the best approximation of volume I could find because the volume of loose coins is hard to measure precisely. That problems is of course related to the packing of spheres, some people here are experts in this area, does someone has an idea what a pile of loose euros or american quarter will occupy ? My approximation is not very good but it gives an idea of the volume, also, for those remembered in the sept. 11 eleven, please tell me what would be a standard volume of reference, something that most people would recognize as a large volume, like the size in cubic meters of the queen mary II, but that one is not easily found. I took the egyptian pyramids because it has to do with french history and Napoleon and it is well known. The debt of usa as everybody knows now is 14300 billion dollars and the french debt is about 5000 billion dollars, I converted to euro for the computation and of course the volume of the 2 pyramids. found here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids I sent my computations to the french journal 'Le Monde' and had no reaction at all as well as the Canard Enchaîné. Well, I my opinion : we are doomed, we are toasted. Best regards. Simon Plouffe