Japan Gets to Know a Quadrillion

The late Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) is famous for allegedly saying, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”  It might be apocryphal—the Dirksen Congressional Center has found no evidence that the late Illinois Republican ever made the quip—but it certainly resonates as the political parties spar over sequestration and Americans become even more accustomed to thinking somewhat casually about what should be unfathomably big numbers.