The Truth in the US National Debt

Recently we have heard a lot of talk about the bailouts pushing our debt to over 11 trillion dollars. And, of course nobody can fathom numbers like that. Here, for starters, let me write it out with all the zeros – 11,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars. That is a lot of zeros huh?

In 2003 the median household made about $50,000 a year. So with that said, it would take 220 million households to work for free for a year to pay off a debt like that. More interesting is that we only have approximately 305 million people in America, and of course not all of them are working and not all of them are making the median $50k. In other words, it would take us a few years of working for free.

Furthermore, do you realize what $1 TRILLION is and what has bought in the past. Here is a list from the WSJ.

• One trillion dollars is about one-third of annual US government spending and 13% of the US economy
• It is more than the GDP of all but 12 countries in 2007 (US, Japan, Germany, China, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil, Russia, and India, in that order)
• One trillion is roughly one-sixth of the entire outstanding US federal debt held by the public [one-tenth if you include intra-governmental debt (such as Social Security IOUs)]
• It is the cost that former Vice President Gore attaches to his plan to liberate the US of carbon-based energy.
• From an historical perspective, we spent:

1. $15 million on the Louisiana Purchase; $261 million in today’s dollars; and $409 billion rescaled as a share of the current economy
2. $775 billion in rescaled dollars on the Marshall plan
3. $7 billion in current dollars for the Panama Canal
4. $32 billion for the New Deal; $500 billion in today’s dollars
5. $140 billion for the Apollo space program in today’s dollars
6. $29 billion in today’s dollars for the Manhattan project — to develop the atomic bomb
7. $114 billion for the interstate highway system; $800 billion today

• The WSJ concludes: “The only specific American endeavor, ever, that tipped the trillion-dollar scale was World War II. That war – in which 16 million US troops [including some of you] fought for four years over two fronts – cost about $4 trillion in adjusted dollars, or $17 trillion in today’s GDP.

Does anyone else see this as being so incredibly messed up?

To make matters worse, this is the raw national debt. This is not the debt including interest and the money promised to the elderly, the Baby Boomers, and other citizens.

That number is 57 trillion dollars. (link) This is five times what your politician will admit to. Problem? Hello!

And now we have a President that promises to spend his way out of this fiasco. Oh great. Can you imagine doing this in your own personal life?

This is what I hear, “Hey honey, we have a debt of $500,000… So, go buy a Porsche 911, give all the neighbors a few thousand dollars, and throw an extravagant party with filet mignot, lobster, and an open bar for anyone who can stumble in. Oh don’t worry about the cost honey. We are going to rob the rich guy down the street. He has too much anyways.”
This is what I call….. Bullshit.

The Solution Is Found Within Each Of Us

So, all we hear is how crappy the economy is anymore and how the US is spiraling into some sort of black hole of which we will never recover from. And for all this psycho babble talk (and with the help of my new friend Liz), I say BULLSHIT.

Of course, my optimism is not due to Messiah Obama coming into the big chair here in a few days. No. I could care less about him. He isn’t magical and he surely isn’t my Messiah. No, my optimism is rooted in the belief that Americans are a different breed. In the history of our country we have never laid down in the face of a problem, adversity, or even a big bully throwing torpedoes at our ships. Hell no. We were build on the notion that WE THE PEOPLE had the power here in this land – not only control of our government, but also to fix whatever happened in the economy. During the Revolution war we rode our horses around and flipped the bird at England. We told her to shove off and go find some other people to rule.

For the first time in the history of the world a group of people decided they wanted to be free of tyranny and live their lives how they wanted.  They didn’t want to be told what religion to practice. They didn’t want to work hard just to give someone “tax” money. They didn’t want to have the government come in their house and dig around. And so much more. And with those thoughts, we made this country.

World Peace and How to REALLY Get It

Below is a three part piece on Bullshit by Penn and Teller. While I disagree with some of their conclusions, this is one thing that I believe that I do agree with. I’ve been there and done that – so hopefully this doesn’t offend any of my fellow peace-activists.