Behold! That’s about 100% of GDP!
But things aren’t all dire: yes, we have this debt; and yes, we have built $1.5 Trillion or so of new deficit spending into each budget going forward; and yes, we have anywhere between $60 and $140 Trillion in unfunded liabilities — to be paid with money that doesn’t exist in the world, as of now. Still, in about a week’s time, there’s an outside chance Congress will reach a deal through which they’ll chop off $1.2 Trillion in future spending (a little bit less than next year’s deficit spending), and we’ll get to pay for the majority of it through “revenue increases” and the removal of “loopholes in the taxcode” that unfairly allow people to keep more money when the poor government just doesn’t seem to have enough.
So we got that going for us.
(thanks to newrouter, afs, and several other bearers of joyous tidings)
I think that’s one of those “grim milestones” we used to hear so much about…
Oh, in case you wanted a visual representation:
Debt
Budget
I’m gonna celebrate by getting totally hammered.
Don’t worry, though, Krugman has informed me that there will be no hangover.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/323805.php And this is how we got there. A couple of billion here and a couple of billion there and pretty soon it is a trillion!
Which is because money is debt. That is, if all debts were paid, money would cease to exist, leaving a huge balance of unpaid interest.
To who you ask? To the Central banks, of course, the de facto unelected governors Wilson’s progressivism has wrought.
Speak of this Ponzied reality in a room full of establishment Republicans and be roundly shot down.
“a pension is a promise” is how America’s epitaph shall read I think
and then after the funeral we can all have tasty cauliflower souffles what have only 140 calories
i’ve been on a cauliflower kick lately
it’s very tasty and rich in vitamin whatever
Does this news come under the heading “Yes We Can” or “Winning the Future?”
I was at a store and ate a tasty treat and the guy at the store said I owed him a debt, so I gave him a dollar.
He seemed happy. I know I was.
– Milestone or millstone?
You know who else got made a promise that has been broken? Retired members of the armed forces. They were promised health care for life if they served for 20 years.
Jimmuh Carter changed that tune.
Here’s what democracy looks like:
They could throw a Dick Armey – Vagina Coastguard Cage Death Match at that hearing tomorrow and CNN would still ignore them and instead run full team coverage on Occupy Something.
We Can’t Wait!
– The #Occupy bowel movement has to do something tomorrow to capture the media coverage lest they get upstaged by the T partiers.