“one thousand five hundred billion”
I like that! It’s more graphic, as you said. Even better, how about one thousand five hundred thousand thousand thousand. (Because even a “billion” is hard to grasp) - or one and a half thousand thousand million.
If we could just get millions of Americans to understand that one Trillion is one Million Million, and to be able to see that number with 12 zeroes, we would have no problem getting Congress and the White House to snap the purse shut.
1,000,000,000,000 doesn’t even seem real. It seems like the kind of number used in astronomy or other unrelated-to-daily-life subject.