Long Scale Billionaires/short Scale Trillionaires
In countries that use the long scale number naming system, a billionaire would have one million million (1,000,000,000,000) units of currency. Under the short scale number naming system, an individual with such a fortune would be a trillionaire. There are no known euro or U.S. dollar trillionaires – in U.S. dollars, such a fortune would be roughly equivalent to the entire 2010 gross domestic product of Mexico. However, some individuals have attained fortunes of over one trillion units in other currencies. According to VnExpress, 9 Vietnamese had stock market assets valued at over one trillion đồng (US$47.5 million) by the end of 2011. According to the Korea Herald, there were 16 Koreans with stock market assets valued at over one trillion won (US$895 million) on March 9, 2012. According to the Jakarta Globe, 116 Indonesians had assets worth over one trillion rupiah (US$117 million) in 2011.
In countries affected by severe hyperinflation, some individuals can become trillionaires as currency units are printed in larger and larger denominations, although in such cases the currency itself quickly becomes virtually worthless.
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Famous quotes containing the words long, scale and/or short:
“Evil can be got very easily and exists in quantity: the road to her is very smooth, and she lives near by. But between us and virtue the gods have placed the sweat of our brows; the road to her is long and steep, and it is rough at first; but when a man has reached the top, then she is easy to attain, although before she was hard.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)
“I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)