What Could You Buy With 2 Trillion Euros?
Germany just found 2 trillion euros for re-armament down the back of the couch. Reality keeps changing second-by-second.
The Financial Times reports today that Germany could borrow nearly €2 trillion over the next decade without hurting economic growth.
Forget the siren calls of the fiscal fundamentalists whose debt brake policies directly flamed the rise of the far right AfD and whose addiction to austerity here in the UK is directly responsible for the rise of Farage and the Reform Party.
Forget all that…. there’s suddenly 2 trillion euros sloshing around!
What Is 2 Trillion?
Let’s break it down in plain, simple terms:
Counting to a Million:
If you count one number per second, it takes about 11.5 days to reach 1,000,000.Counting to a Billion:
A billion seconds? That’s roughly 32 years of non-stop counting!Elon Musk’s Wealth (300 Billion):
Now, imagine counting to 300 billion. You’d be at it for around 9,500 years!Counting to 2 Trillion:
Finally, if you tried to count to 2 trillion, it would take you a mind-boggling 63,000 years.
That’s not just a lot of time—it’s a number so huge it’s almost beyond belief.
What Could We Do With 2 Trillion Euros?
Here are some jaw-dropping possibilities:
Rebuild Our Roads & Rails:
Imagine building thousands of miles of high-speed rail, modern highways, and state-of-the-art airports.
Your daily commute could become a futuristic joyride!House Everyone:
With an average home costing around €200,000, 2 trillion euros could buy roughly 10 million new homes.
Wave goodbye to housing crises!Go Green:
Invest in renewable energy projects like wind farms and solar parks to power the future and fight climate change.
Clean energy for a cleaner planet!Boost Health & Education:
Fund world-class hospitals, schools, and universities.
Better healthcare and education for millions—imagine the boost in quality of life!Spark Innovation:
Pour money into research and development for breakthrough technologies that could change our world.
From new tech to groundbreaking medicine, the sky’s the limit!Slash National Debt:
Pay off debts that have weighed down economies for too long, freeing up resources for future growth.
A fresh financial start for everyone!
So, Why Now?
Why has this massive spending never been possible before? For decades, strict fiscal rules and austerity were seen as unbreakable. Governments believed that borrowing too much was a recipe for disaster. But today, with a crisis deemed important enough—a literal war in Europe— we find that the rules are able to bend. When the stakes are deemed high enough, even the most rigid policies start to crack.
It’s worth noting the crises that are note considered important enough to break these rules included:
The cost of living crisis
Adapting to climate collapse
Councils going bankrupt because of austerity
The crisis of social care
Imagine a future where 2 trillion euros were not just numbers on a balance sheet but real investments to transform our lives.