Just this past summer, the amount of the U.S. budget deficit would be for Fiscal Year 2010 was, at that time, estimated to be 1.47 trillion dollars, which is a big number. So big, in fact, that the Washington Post’s Ariana Eunjung Cha did some math to express that 1,470,000,000,000 figure into more familiar terms. Here’s a sampling of what she found:

1.5 times the 10-year cost of the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul

18 times Goldman Sachs’ market capitalization as of Friday (July 23, 2010)

28 times Bill Gates’ net worth …

4,027 Powerball jackpots, based on the largest in history of $365 million on February 18, 2006 …

14,848 Contracts for Lebron James based on the maximum payout for his joining the Miami Heat …

43,625,356 years of tuition at Harvard …

7,386,934,673 Apple iPhone4s (16MB)

8,400,000,000 Lady Gaga concert tickets at face value

402,739,726,027 Tall Starbucks Chocolate Frappuccinos

For our part, we’ll observe that if the 2010 U.S. budget deficit were instead the entire GDP of a nation, that nation would rank 12th in the world (between Italy and Mexico, at least as of 2009). Even after it turned out to be almost $100 billion better than expected when the federal government’s fiscal year ended on September 30, 2010!