They say the world's population is 6 billion. How much is this? Is it 6,000,000,000 or is it 6,000,000,000,000? Here in Australia we supposedly
use the British number system where 1 billion equals one million million, however in the US 1 billion equals one thousand million. It's a pretty big
discrepancy so why is it rarely made clear?
This happens a lot in news bulletins where they speak of budget deficits or the like. I'm sure they mean one thousand million but according to our
standards here in Australia, a billion is one million million. Maybe we're in more debt than I ever imagined!