After it gets to a certain point, we lose comprehension of thevastness, and the vast difference between, a million and a billion.You can comprehend a million easily enough. Hmm, if I'm one ofthose lucky souls making $100,000 annually, then a million is 10years worth of salary.

Now think in terms of billions: one billion equals 1,000millions. That's a lot of millions! Take it a step further and tryto imagine a trillion (like the $3.2 trillion national deficit). Atrillion is 1,000 billions. I'll stop there, because I think we allget the point. These kinds of numbers boggle the mind, and when itbecomes particularly uncomfortable thinking about them, we do amental block-out.

Take last month's issue of Claims, for instance. On page 24, wereported in two different places about hurricane damage in themillions, when, of course, we should have been speaking inbillions. Not one phone call or e-mail ensued. And this wasn't in ashort news piece, but in our cover story, so we know most of yousaw it and did the old mental block-out! Well, that's not quitetrue. The president of this company read it on a plane, and wasquick to point out the error to me. (Rats!)