10 'Astounding' Science Facts That Aren't Very Astounding If You're A Pedant

9. There Are More Dollars In The Deficit Than Stars In The Galaxy

Stars in the Milky Way: 200 million plus Dollars in the US deficit : ~$18 trillion This one's often trotted out as a parable for how naughty the government is and we should totally overthrow them with a world-wide revolution. Problem is, it's stupid. Sure, it sounds amazing. No-one can picture two hundred million of anything. And the number of dollars is 90,000 times even bigger than that number? What an astonishing fact, friend! Well, it would be if money wasn't made up. And if a dollar wasn't just an arbitrary unit. Would you be amazed to learn that the number of cents in the US deficit is 100 times bigger than the number of dollars? Or if converted to Yen, it would be over 2 quadrillion? No. Since we ditched the gold standard, we've made money out of thin air - in fact we do it all the time. Ever heard of quantitative easing? Where do you think money even comes from?