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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."
"It's symbolic," Stauber, a 40-year-old pilot from Switzerland, said of the counter's lack of space. "It's a very big symbol. It's a complete failure of the system. It's the most powerful country in the world with a conservative government for the last eight years, and it's running the biggest debt ever."
Just because Bush claims to be a conservative doesn't mean he actually is one!
The US has an incredibly interventionist foreign policy, and Americans haven't experienced a free market for almost a century. I'd like to echo Jim Rogers, and say that all we've seen lately is socialism.
US is still the number one manufacturer by far; twice and a half of its next-in-line, Germany IIRC. You have nothing to worry about...
Oh, and I really doubt countries like Canada could ever survive without American funds. Even back in the Bad Old Days we wouldn't consider cutting ourselves off entirely...
China collecting US debt?... Um, wouldn't that rape them twice over?...
The US is in a bad situation right now. But if you can get out of Iraq things will be much better, I'm highly confident things will be back to "normal". Iraq was horrible because it showed people like Hezbollah that Bush (by extension the US) has no teeth. And a world with these fearless terrorrisers is not one I think anyone would want to live in, except the extremists in the PRC's government.
"Giving the super wealthy more money is not socialism."
So now confiscating less of their earnings is now "giving them money"? What kind of Marxist bullshit is that?
If you want to make the case for so-called "progressive" taxation, fine, but drop this shitty notion that it's the government's money in the first place. It's not. Money is property, and last time I checked, we still have property rights in this country.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Everybody loves to blame Republicans! But you need to realise both parties are at fault here. And by both parties, I mean mostly the Democrats.
Take a look at some legislation during the Clinton years. Look what he did! He created... some stuff, that ... ruined our economy. Yes! Clinton, and all those other Democrats played their (foundational) part in causing this crisis of debt! The surplus that his administration ran was... well, misleading. In fact, Bush's deficit was in fact, when you think about it, a net contributor to the national surplus.
Both sides have caused problems here. Just look at legislation passed by the current Democratic controlled Congress. It's driving us under! OK, Republicans made some mistakes during their tenure, but it's clear from the fact that things are still bad, that the Democrats are not doing anything to fix the problem! I mean, the Republicans didn't leave that big of a mess behind them!
So just remember that no matter what the topic, there are two sides to every issue, and "Both Sides" are at fault. Equally. It's the basis of modern debate. Especially the fact about Republicans being less at fault.
May the Maths Be with you!
Interesting point. I would say that with the guarantee, we only get stuck with the bill for those that default, while just printing up the money gets us stuck with the whole tab. After all, there are people who actually pay loans back.
What about, if instead of an almost 1 trillion dollar loan, they just made the banks keep the monthly mortgage payments to the level they were before the ARM adjustments kicked the price up to a level people couldn't afford?
We could grandfather the above people in, and then come up with good Ron Paul-style common sense policy, such as not making bad loans anymore, not printing up money out of thin air, and not keeping the interest rates artificially low and encouraging borrowing to begin with.
Yes, some people would still default on their home loans, but it would be better than a 1 trillion dollar blank check...at least in my opinion.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
So what should we conclude from the Republicans almost passing the balanced budget amendment?
The same we should conclude from their talk about term limits in the 90's: nothing more than a marketing slogan.
What can we conclude that the Republican congress gave us the first budget surplus in 30 years?
Fail. Clinton's tax increase is what gave us the surplus, not the Republican Congress who would have just slashed taxes on the rich.