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National Debt Clock Overflowed, Extended By a Digit
hackingbear writes "The National Debt Counter, erected in 1989 when the US debt was 'merely' a tiny $2.7 trillion, has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon. To accommodate the extra '1,' the clock was hacked: the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.' It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros. That should be good enough for a few more months at least, I believe." Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."
Perhaps they can get a new model that displays the debt in scientific notation -- it could be named the "Cheney Memorial Clock".
Thats really sad isnt it, that we at one point WHERE paying down the debt. And the sad thing is Bush cant even blame the war... he got rid of ALL of Clintons budget concessions not long after becoming president. If he had kept them, even with the war, we would have had the debt paid off by 2011., as of now without serious cuts in spending and raising taxes in some form (which could be as easy as repealing the Bush tax cuts) it could be 2070 by the time we get out of debt. And these are people who sold themselves as fiscal conservatives.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Consider repaying $1000/month on your credit card. For many people that might be hardship. For most people, repaying $2000/month is not 2 times as hard, butmuch harder.
Similarly, repaying $18k per person is a lot easier than repaying $32k, by much more than a factor of 2.
Of course that's all academic since nobody seems to be planning on repaying this debt.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The debt clock gives a per family portion. ~$86k. Compare that with the median income. Whoo!
If you spend a lot on your administration, to win over voters or do whatever it is you want, then when the Democrat gets into office, he or she will be forced to cut spending so as to create a surplus while keeping the Republican's low taxes, lest they get "tax hike" backlash. At the same time, whenever "starve the beast" fails, deficits don't matter, or deficits are the grease that keeps the gears of the economy going.
Republican politicians like McCain say we're supposed to reduce spending, (in order to reduce national debt, though this step on the flowchart may be skipped depending on the audience), and we also should reduce taxes further, but then how will we get rid of the national debt?
Furthermore, if the Republicans are to perpetually starve the beast and fail, clearly their strategy needs to change. They need to raise deficits so much that the interest itself is as burdensome as the current deficit levels by themselves. That, and if the Republicans are perpetually starving the beast, maybe they should at least be doing so with programs like national healthc----oh, wait.
The preferred method of starving the beast is through increases in the national defense budget, it would seem. John McCain has expressed need for a spending freeze in all areas but that, which would cut off funding for new NASA projects (which aren't entitlements, including Orion, which was approved in a separate bill), while his close colleague Lindsey Graham wants to cut the budget by 5% in all areas but national defense.
Actually, no it wouldn't. China's economy is a lot stronger than you think. Unlike the US, they have a massive manufacturing base that can ship to anywhere in the world. The US is just a "customer" - a bad one at that.
They have the rest of the world (Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, the list goes on). To me it would be business as usual, with one less "customer".
Yes and no. China does have the world's largest standing army and citizens with a tradition of taking their orders from the government. If it comes down to a question of which county can suppress the riots for longer, my money is on China. They do a LOT of business with the EU and other nations, even if their single biggest trade partner is the US.
My guess is that if trade between the US and China was cut off, China could hold back the riots for as long as it took to retool their production and markets. If Walmart ran out of stock, there would be rioting in the US within the week.
But of course the tax system doesn't actually work that way. That tax code can not be explained in an analogy, nor can the ideal tax code. Its like you're stating categorically that any adjustment what-so-ever in the tax code will have dire consequences if it results in higher taxes being paid by the super wealthy. Historically speaking, the tax burden on the rich was actually much much higher, with the result being both a lower burden on the middle and lower classes as well as higher rate of philanthropy amongst the wealthy.
Attempting to deceive people by the means of an analogy and a degree is a vile act of the highest order. You sir, should be ashamed.
Is anyone else, like me, making plans to move out of the US? Frankly I didn't get us into this mess and I'm not willing to do my part to bail out all those who did. I'm a liberal, not a libertarian, so I don't think taxes are always bad, but when I hear about what they're going to be going to, well I'd rather be paying taxes someplace where they're going to do some good. I hear european countries have high taxes, but they're not sending it all to Wall street, Iraq, and the world's largest military. I'd rather pay twice the taxes I am now if I knew it was going to more worthwhile things, like studying bear DNA.
I have no skill when it comes to convincing people of anything, especially not the average voter. I come across as arrogant, elitist, and condescending, because I am arrogant, elitist, and condescending, and that doesn't convince them of anything other than they don't like me. I give money to different causes to do that, but I myself am not helping my fellow citizen make the right choices.
While I like the place and the people, we've really painted ourselves into a corner. Every other country on earth makes stupid moves, because every person on earth is occasionally stupid, but the US keeps making such BIG mistakes. I feel selfish, or rather, I realize I'm selfish, but I'm not doing any good here, country is going to hell in a handbasket no matter what I do. I'm here for several more years in any event, so I guess there is time for us to shape up, but I'm making new plans anyway. Anyone else?
What's the problem? The *average* American spends $1.30 for every $1.00 they earn. The average house has a loan on it for 60% of its market value, while the market value is falling fast. And everyone is still hoping and praying for a quick fix wonder cure that will wipe all the trouble away and allow the fairy tale to continue.
And now everyone is turning to their governments to bail out this mess. This will only result in bankrupt governments as well.
There's only one way to fix this. Widespread bankruptcy.
All the people who have gambled with or spent their future earnings and thrown them away need to be cleaned out of the economy. It's going to hurt and there's nothing we can do about it. We might have been able to fix this 15 years ago during the last recession, but it's too late now.
I thought with the panic last week, the bubble would finally burst and we can start the healing and re-building process. But it seems there is still far too much optimism.
Oh, and that job you have? Once we stop borrowing more money, 30% of the economy (and therefore 30% of the jobs) disappear overnight. I hope for your sake you don't become redundant.
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