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."
Deficits don't matter. All that matters is that your dogs are bigger and meaner than the debt collectors'.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The largest bit became a one? It overflowed?
So now it's negative?
We're rich! So that's how we were going to pay for the bail-out, SS, medicare, medicaid...
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I think I understand now...eventually we're going to get to the point where no computer will be able to track how high the debt gets...and it will simply rollover and the US economy is back, baby!
Why don't they just make it an analog clock? The hands could simply spin around faster and faster as the situation worsens, which would be much more amusing. The numbers are fairly meaningless anyway.
This is the second debt clock. The first version could only count upward, and when the budget had a surplus back in the Clinton years, and the debt began to decrease, the debt clock was shut down. After a year or so, it was then replaced with the current version, which has the ability to count both upward and downward. The downward capability has not been used during the Bush years.
Perhaps they can get a new model that displays the debt in scientific notation -- it could be named the "Cheney Memorial Clock".
First of all, 2.7 in 1989 are worth more than the same amount in 2007. Inflation calculator says 2.7 trillion in 1989 equal 4.6 trillion in 2008.
Secondly, what's really important is the debt-per-capita ratio, and the US population has increased. In 1989 the US population was 246 million; in 2008, it's 305 million.
That means, that in 2008 dollars equivalent, the per-capita debt in 1989 was $18,000, while in 2008, the per capita debt is $32,000.
Yes, we do owe more. But we "only", per capita and in equivalent monetary value, owe about 80% more, as opposed to 370% more, as the original numbers would make you believe.
Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' [CC] but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."
Why does this guy hate America so much?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Now is the perfect time to convert to the decimal system!
National debt goes from $10.2 trillion to only $10.2 billion (10^6) without paying a single cent of it!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
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.
OMG the dollar sign is static... it's the end of the world!!!!
You're right. After the upcoming total economic collapse, we'll need the clock to be able to display the debt in terms of Chinese yuan or Euros. The current design does not allow for that.
The reason the debt clock has this problem is because it is sensationalistic and does not give us any real information. What we should be looking at is not the debt, but the debt in relation to some other metric, such as multiple of median income, amount per person, percentage of GDP. Using this later metric, Reagan left us with a debt of about 70% of GDP, Bush will leave us with a debt of 80% of GDP, while Clinton left us with a debt of about 60% of GDP. It is interesting to think that Truman, Ike, Kennedy and even Nixon, all worked to help the US future by reducing the % debt. We even have to give carter so kudos for not increasing it as a % of GDP. The scary thing is that during the great depression GDP fell perhaps 20 or 25%. If this happened in the next few years, our GDP might fall to 9.5 trillion, and we might see a national debt of 110% of GDP. This would be like a family with the median of $50,000 having unsecured debt of $55,0000. How they would pay this off would be extremely unclear.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
10,150,603,734,720.00 (decimal) = 93,B5F,213,EC0.00 (hex)
Whoever came up with the idea of buying a new LCD clock should be fired for wastefulness.
The debt clock gives a per family portion. ~$86k. Compare that with the median income. Whoo!
What "fiscal conservatives"!
But wait, the debt has grown insanely under every single Republican president in the last 40 years.
How could that be?
The Republicans aren't fiscally conservative at all. Every single republican president has spent like a drunken sailor and GWB is the worst of the lot.
The only thing more stupid than Tax and Spend is Spend and Spend.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
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.
If I owe you a hundred dollars, I have a problem.
If I owe you a hundred billion dollars, you have a problem.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Sort of a Moore's Law for debt, eh?
Every 2 terms of republican presidency, the national debt increases by a factor of 10. :D
Incidentally, anyone know what 1989's $2.7 Trillion is in today's dollars?
about 1.3599 better
Actually the debt realtive to the GDP went down which is all that matters.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
And when that (inevitably) threatens to overflow, do it in scientific notation. The Neocons and their supports won't understand it, and hopefully leave economic policy to people who don't think you can fix the economy by praying in public for lower gasoline prices.
I'm a god hating, baby aborting, marx reading liberal.
Deficits don't matter. Rather, the existence of a deficit doesn't. Having a deficit and a debt we CAN PAY BACK is a GOOD thing. It means our credit rating is great and that we can extend ourselves in times of crises and be a financial powerhouse in the world.
however, when we're struggling to pay our principle much less the interest, then that's a different story all together.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
push the on button, wait for the tutorial lady to tell you why there are 6 pedals when there are only 4 directions.
red button activates auto-fire sequence. Be sure to have some shovels ready.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If USA owes this foolish amount of money, but no-one dares to ask for it back because of the military and economic power - then USA effectively owns the world, and might as well just declare itself debt free, and carry on living off the backs of its slaves.
The rest of us aren't going to do anything about it.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
It's not that simple.
1. For a start, it would work that way if the USA were the only market in the world. I do believe that China can also sell to Europe, or to its own damn citizens. I don't think the Chinese would revolt if they could buy good computers instead of exporting them.
The USA survived pretty well by selling its best stuff locally instead of exporting it all, didn't it?
Anyway, the USA has, what, 5% of the world's population? There's a whole other 95% who could buy that stuff.
2. Whatever advantage there may be in selling to the USA, would disappear overnight if the USA decided not to pay, which is (I believe) what the GP was getting at. The whole deficit scheme is, basically, borrowing money from those countries in exchange for their products. If the USA decided to just pocket some trillions of dollars overnight, on the justification that, basically, "our dogs are bigger than the tax collectors'", it would find itself a much less attractive market. Equally overnight.
3. The whole lopsided market situation exists because countries are made to export their raw materials for cents and have to buy high-tech stuff for thousands of dollars. Or, ridiculously enough, lately manufacture that high-tech stuff themselves in their own sweatshops, sell it to themselves, and send the profits to some overseas corporation.
Basically think: you want new shoes. So I send you my permit to raise your own pig, slaughter it yourself, tan its skin, and make your own gloves. Only now you have to pay me for the gloves. I'll even pay you back a few cents for the leather, 'cause that's raw materials and dirt cheap, and charge you lots for the gloves.
And you can't just say "fuck you, buddy" because there are some international treaties and that forbid you from using my patented design and my "Le Moraelin Haute Couture" label. Oh, and to add insult to injury, you designed that design for me too, but I patented it, 'cause I'm the big international corporation with teh moneyz.
And while for gloves that's just a matter of being a fashion victim, for a lot of other stuff it's less black and white.
That's the shit end of the imperialism stick, that those countries get. Mostly because we, the western world, promise to give them a black eye one way or another, if they don't abide by that kind of an arrangement.
Far from being some kind of great help that China would be foolish to cut off, it's a very disadvantageous system for China and a lot of other countries. If they threw it off, their economy wouldn't implode, and their standard of living would go up overnight. Again, they have a billion of their own people to sell that stuff to, instead of selling it to 300 million foreigners. Other than an artifficial financial and trade system imposed on them saying that it's better to sell to an American than to 4 Chinese, there is no real reason why that is so.
_If_ the western world decided to just plunder the existing debts, that might just be the excuse they're waiting for, to get out of that system.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If your money is created from nothing at the point of a loan and you want to inflate the money supply then you also have to increase the (exponentially growing) debt at the same time.
Now, if you want the "economy" to grow then clearly you have to increase the supply of money faster than the interest on the debt which is consuming credit, or you get a recession.
Whether the debt is public debt, private debt or corporate debt, is irrelevant. The debt must be created. Or at least, it will be until you run out of people willing or able to take on and service the debt, then the system collapses. Doesn't this requirement for perpetual growth sound like something else?
It is a predictable exponential function and therefore has a doubling time, so yes, you could create a "law" about it.
The national debt, the credit crunch, the stockmarket crisis are all the inevitable result of the way your money is created... Long may it continue.
Deleted
Man, I have to reply to this, because although you may understand the concept, I've had so many people make this mistake around me that it drives me crazy.
Now remember this: THE EXCHANGE RATE MEANS NOTHING. Think about it.....if the the exchange rate meant something, then the US economy would be doing about 106 times better than the Japanese economy right now, but it's not.
The only thing that really matters is the change and general direction of the exchange rate (and even that isn't entirely accurate, since it is possible for both sides to experience inflation at the same time, which is essentially what is happening right now, with the Euro dropping in value against the dollar). So once again, the Euro being at 1.35 of the dollar means very little by itself, despite the fact that two months ago the Euro was 1.6 times the dollar.
Eh. We're all gonna be livin' on the streets soon, so who cares?
Qxe4
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?
People from other countries like to avoid being murdered by the American military too; perhaps at some point in the future, the American soldier might extend his circle of care to included mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and neighbours from other countries too?
Requiem for the American Dream
It really irks me that people keep mentioning the same facts over and over again. Everyone knows how FRB works. Everyone knows they printed money. Everyone who is going to know knows. So why are you wasting brain power trying to educate people when you could be coming up with solutions.
I saw I story today about Iceland. You may or may not know that Iceland is a sort of banking haven for Europe. Anyway, they bought up a lot of these bad securities based on loans that may or may not currently be bad. Anyway, the story mentioned that the depositors from England and Germany and Europe are coming and wanting their money from the Icelandic banks and they don't have any. And it ended with "poor Iceland, what will they do now that their economy has collapsed"?
It's this type of stupid story that the media JUST LOVE to splatter about. They don't understand that they are CAUSING the mess. Guess what? NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN ICELAND. The farmer still grows his stuff. The geothermal energy is still coming from the ground. The snow is still white and cold. Nothing is different except the assumed value of a few sheets of paper.
Likewise, in America and world-wide, nothing REAL has changed. Yes, there are shysters who make money off confidence, and they are suffering right now. Oh, who's this guy Henry Paulson? The FORMER CEO of Goldman Sachs you idiots! But in reality, we are all still going to work, still producing the little amount of stuff we produce in this country. But we produce everything we need to exist, food, housing, medicine. So, again, I ask, what's the problem? If I'm hungry, can I get food? Yes. If I need a place to stay, is there one? Yes. If I'm sick is there a hospital mandated by law to provide care for me? Yes. So, what's the problem?
Buy local and DO NOT buy gold, since you can't buy food with gold. You can, in very bad times, buy gold with food :) So yes, if they weren't already speculated to record highs by people who saw this whole thing coming 18 months ago, buy commodities. Hell, REAL ESTATE is a great investment right now. If you have cash.. Some lucky asshole is going to swipe all those houses up from the banks. It might even be the U.S. government. And you know, they overpay for EVERYTHING, so if you buy some now, you will see an immediate appreciation. Anyway, these are not bad times if you are smart and not stupid and buy into their stupid panic stories. If you are seriously worried about feeding your family you shouldn't have GAMBLED IT AWAY on stocks.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Better dead than red!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not so sure, six armour piercing arrows per minute can be quite persuasive...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That analogy is absolutely ridiculous. The rich man is not a goose who poops golden eggs and shares them out of kindness. The rich man's wealth is where everyone else's is: In the bar.
When ten men go to a bar, the first five clock in and start working. The next four buy their own drinks. And the tenth gets a free beer because he owns the place. If ANY of them stop going to the bar, the musical chairs just shuffle around, until there are too few people left to operate a bar. And then it closes. And no more rich man.
You talk as though the rich are the lynchpin of capitalism. They're not; they're a byproduct, and in many cases a sign of inefficiency or poor regulation. The middle class are the lynchpin of capitalism. And they have been slowly disappearing into WalMart, CostCo, and the military industrial complex for the last 25 years. Have you noticed that the steps are getting a bit narrow on your ivory tower?
It's important to have goals.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"Hi, it looks like you are trying to eliminate a target. Would you like me to:
a) Arm the weapons systems
b) Initialize the targeting system
c) Deploy ECM in case hostiles are nearby"
I hate printers.
No, it can't. The result of the efforts to make home ownership more widespread was a set of anti-discrimination laws placed in the CRA. However, CRA regulated loans had virtually nothing to do with the current crisis. Despite CRA-regulated banks doing the bulk of regular loans, 50% of sub-prime loans - which make up the bulk the "toxic mortgages" - were issued by banks entirely free of CRA regulation, and a further 20-25% were issued by departments of CRA-regulated banks that were free of CRA regulations. The remaining 25-30%, while performed by regulated banks, were almost certainly illegal given the strict nature of the CRA and the requirements for collateral it imposes.
The problem here are not mortgages given to people on low incomes, but sub-prime mortgages given to everyone. People were using the sub-prime market to make excessive gambles that fell apart when the housing market collapsed. These varied from overly stretched ARM HELOCs to people buying multiple houses with the intent of either flipping them or renting them out. You can probably imagine that the largest gambles were not taken by the poor, but by those on median or higher than average incomes.
BTW, thanks for being one of the few people making this argument that didn't directly blame ethnic minorities for this mess, but remember that the key laws Democrats are being blamed for are not laws directed at low incomes, but at ending discrimination against ethnic minorities. Those that are promoting this meme are treading on very dangerous ground. The CRA didn't force banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford them (quite the opposite in fact), and CRA regulated loans had little or nothing to do with this crisis, which affects sub-prime loans of the type the CRA prevents. It did require banks end discrimination, but a person from an ethnic minority who entered a branch of Wachovia and asked for a 110% mortgage to help them buy a $500,000 home which they expected to pay back using their Burger King salary would have been rejected just as a white person in the same circumstances would have been. The CRA wouldn't have forced them to give the loan anyway, the CRA would have done the opposite.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The citizens of Eastern Europe rose-up against their governments. These citizens didn't even own guns. By your reckoning they should have been squashed, but that didn't happen. Most of the soldiers refused to fire on their own neighbors, and the governments collapsed under the sheer weight of numbers.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.