Required XKCD reference: http://xkcd.com/558/

To most people, "million", "billion" and "trillion" are almost 
interchangeable terms. Which is worrying, because those are /very 
different/ quantities. They're not even remotely similar. But it seems 
that when talking about large numbers, people get a kind of "numbness" 
where the quantities are so vast that they seemingly might as well be 
non-finite.

But you know what? As far as I can tell, almost nobody mixes up a 
kilowatt and a megawatt. Nobody confuses centimetres with millimetres. 
No one has trouble with a gram and a kilogram being very different 
quantities. And when was the last time you saw somebody [who has a clue] 
mix up a gigabyte and a terabyte?

So, perhaps what we need to do is start measuring money using SI 
prefixes. For surely 165 megadollars is clearly smaller than 170 
gigadollars.

Sadly, I fear that for some, 20 millicents /will/ equal 20 millidollars.

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