Slashdot Mirror
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."
[T]he people would hold the communist party accountable--revolution would be in the streets and China would become be under new management by the end of the month.
I have two words for you: 'Tiananmen' and 'Square'.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Do they have to know how to fly it as well?
That's why you treat a two-income household like a one-income one. Make sure your day-to-day necessities (food, shelter, clothing, utilities) are covered entirely by the lower of the two incomes, so in an emergency where one of the two "engines" fails, you still have enough power to stay flying.
The second income should act more like a turbocharger or afterburner -- it goes toward savings, luxuries, and/or paying principals on loans down faster.
My parents did this for twenty years, and although we may not have had all the flashy stuff I wished for when I was a kid, we were always safe in the instances where my dad was laid off. I'd do it as well, except that my wife stays home to watch our daughter. But if she decides to get a job when our daughter reaches school age, I'll continue with the same philosophy.