That's using billion to be 1 and 9 zeros, ie thousand million, used to be 12 zeros in the UK, ie a million million but we downgraded it to please the USA!
blimey - i heard on the news today that the total benefits bill for the year is 500 billion - can it possibly be right that's enough for 8k per person per year??
I'd disagree methyl as did zebo. A billion in US has always been a thousand million. In UK it used to be a million million but we now adopt the thousand million same as US.