The federal budget deficit hit a milestone today which we knew was coming but is no less newsworthy. It surpassed the $1 trillion mark.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time.

The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and already pressuring the value of the dollar.There's also concern about trying to reverse the deficit - by
reducing government spending or raising taxes - in the midst of a harsh recession.

The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.

Another excerpt:

"These are mind boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."

 

If we were talking about seconds, a million seconds would be about 11.5 days; a billions seconds is nearly 32 years and a trillion seconds is 32,000 years. (Thanks to Temple University math professor John Allen Paulos who did the math for CNN.)