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National Debt Clock Overflowed, Extended By a Digit

Posted by timothy on from the but-don't-worry-balanced-budget's-a-crazy-idea dept.

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."

3 of 696 comments (clear)

  1. As Feynman said ... by richg74 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The late Richard Feynman had an appropriate comment for this, I think:

    There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

    Perhaps they can get a new model that displays the debt in scientific notation -- it could be named the "Cheney Memorial Clock".

  2. Re:Clock can run in reverse. by falcon5768 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."

  3. Re:Clock can run in reverse. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.