Putting meat on the bones of an almost uncomprehensible $16 trillion in federal debt!
It was on Sept. 4, 2012, when the U.S. government reached the $16 trillion mark for the first time in U.S. history, a debt that is now larger than the entire U.S. economy.
The day Obama took office debt stood at $10.626 trillion. Having reached $16 trillion in less than four years -- an increase of over 51% -- President Obama can rightly be called "The Undisputed Debt King of the last five Presidents."
Under Obama's Watch 1) Each citizen's share of the national debt has risen $17,454 to a total of $51,874; 2) Obama has added an average of 4,073,237,142 to the national debt every day; and 3) On average, Obama has added $1 trillion to the national debt every 254 days.
Because of the rapid skyrocketing of the debt in the last 4 years, by the end of this current fiscal year the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that our national debt will rise to 73% of the GDP from its 40% level at the end of 2008. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/09/powerful-video-16-trillion-reasons/
We didn't overspend. Our government has overspent by $16 trillion. We are now on the hook for all of it with our hard earned money, and so are our children and grandchildren with money not yet earned.
Eyes glaze over when a trillion dollars is mentioned, but trillions are being spent and racked up in debt as if there were no tomorrows. Not all that many years ago national debt was being measured by multiples of billions.
Very few of us will ever see a million dollars all at one time in our lifetimes, even fewer a billion. In all of human history not even the richest man has ever amassed a trillion dollars.
How much is a 1 trillion? Using the US system of numbers, the short scale, and not the British system, known as the long scale, the number one trillion is written accordingly, 1,000,000,000.000, and represents one thousand billion. But the question now to be defined, what is a billion? It is one thousand million, written 1,000,000,000. Following through, a million is a 1,000 thousands, written 1000,000. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/politicaljunkies/l/bl_how_much_billion.htm
At this point all the zeros after the one mean nothing to most individuals and remain as abstract numbers in the mind, existing only as numbers that must be very big.
Following are some concrete examples of one trillion dollars that will help puts meat on the bare bones: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/politicaljunkies/l/bl_how_much_is_a_trillion.htm
- $1 trillion would be enough money to buy about a 1,000 boxes of girl Scout cookies for every person in the U.S..
- A box that holds a case of copier paper will hold about $72,000 one dollar bills. It would take 1.4 billion boxes to hold $1 trillion dollars.
- One billion seconds ago is 31years. One trillion seconds ago, or 31,688 years ago, Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe.
- Western civilization has not even been around for a trillion seconds.
- A tightly-stacked new $100 bills totaling $1 million would be about 4 feet high; a billion dollars would reach 4,000 ft. high or the equivalent to about three Sears Towers stacked on top of one another. That means a stack of $100 bills totaling $1 trillion would reach 789 miles high or 144 Mr. Everest's stacked on top of one another or or 789 miles high. That's 13,412 miles straight up for $16 trillion!
- One dollar bills stacked face to back and then laid on their side, would circle the globe at the equator 10 times.
Now consider how long it would take you to spend $1 trillion dollars.
- If you spent one dollar every second around the clock, it would take you 312,688 year to spend a trillion dollars.
- Spending $1 million an hour, now-stop for 24 hours a day, you wouldn't run out of $1 trillion for 411 years.
What about your family or any median American household income of $50,000 a year?
If every dollar of the $50,000 were used to only pay down the $1 trillion in new debt our government overspends each year, it would take a family 312 million years to pay for it. Now multiply by 16. It would take 512 million years for a family to pay back the entire $16 billion in debt that this government owes.
http://www.sedona.biz/wildcard/banking/think-about-these-staggering-numbers-as-you-vote/
Many uninformed Americans have been heard to say: "A trillion here, a trillion there, why worry about another trillion in debt? The government owes me money, and I'm entitled to it."
Little do these Americans know or care that every time the Treasury borrows money to finance a program, that money is added to the federal and must eventually be paid back, with interest.
And what happens when the government prints money? On September 13 the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee announced that it would pursue $50 billion in additional monthly stimulus in the form of quantitative easing. After two previous rounds of QE, whose net result on the economy was imperceptible, it's doubtful whether another round of QE would do anything to help the economy appreciably..
Printing money will reduce what a dollar will buy, affect your own personal net worth, and will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates. Furthermore, when the value of the American fall, foreign investors become less wiling to invest in the U.S., with resulting hyperinflation. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/bernankes-quantitative-easing-wrong-medicine-for-an-ailing-economy?utm_source=091912FMF&utm_medium=Email
The much anticipated QE3 has already resulted in weakening the dollar across the board. http://www.indexuniverse.com/sections/features/14540-fx-impact-qe3-spawns-dollar-weakness.html
Piling up $1 trillion in debt each and every year cannot continue as was the case during the last four years under the Obama administration. What is more, existing programs, such as Obamacare, will adds additional trillions on top of what has been consistent yearly overspending at the federal level.
Most families realize they can't live outside their means and expect to survive. At some point the piper will have to be paid. If payment isn't possible, the end result will not be a rosy one.
Heed the warning of Thomas Jefferson on the economy, at a time when our nation's debt was infinitesimal in contrast to today's almost unimaginable $16 trillion debt:
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. . . To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. . . We must choose between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude." http://www.aproundtable.org/tps2.cfm?ID=1028&issuecode=taxes
Bringin' Down Briarwood
9:29 am on Monday, September 24, 2012
How can you talk about the debt and not even mention the Cheney administration?
Obama deserves his share of the blame, but can we stop with the blind partisan rhetoric? It's a waste of everybody's time.
RB
11:40 am on Monday, September 24, 2012
No kidding. They continually forget about what Bush did to this economy. We were losing 800,000 jobs per month when Mr. Obama took this mess on. Yes, it's his job to solve it, but he got no help from the newly formed Tea Party based Republican Party who wanted him to fail from day one.
Yes, he owns it. Its his baby, but he did not birth it. 40 years of addiction to spending and you expect one party to be able to solve it? Get real. Give him some time and resources to solve it.
D'skidoc
8:03 pm on Monday, September 24, 2012
By the way the word is: "IN-comprehensible"
D'skidoc
8:08 pm on Monday, September 24, 2012
Let's not forget Medicare D (to get the senior vote), two wars (one of which was just for the benefit of Cheney's friends at your friendly "military-industrial complex") and a tax cut for all of the people who usually pay for them (war profiteers aka Daddy Warbucks).
Just Sayin
1:01 pm on Monday, September 24, 2012
BDB & RB...I could not have stated your comments/observations better. Kudos to you both.
Walter White
1:20 pm on Monday, September 24, 2012
Well anyone who knows the author knows that she never lets facts get in the way of her story.
Bringin' Down Briarwood
5:53 pm on Monday, September 24, 2012
Thanks for the insight, Walter.
In case anybody else didn't know about Ms. Thorner, here's an introduction, http://www.illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=3959.
It seems spewing mindless rhetoric is a regular thing for her. She seems to have no problem regularly misguiding people.
McCloud
11:11 am on Tuesday, September 25, 2012
When you go bald, you lose about 800,000 hairs per day, and after some time the rate approaches zero, as there are no more hairs to lose. Some people look at this as progress. Also, seems to me the Democrat senate and Harry Reid block everything the house sends them, this way they have someone to blame for their own failure.
RB
2:20 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
382 uses of the Filibuster by the Republicans is a crummy way to try to run a country. No cooperation, means no action. No action, means slow recovery. Thanks to 'Republicans' we've stayed in a slow economy much longer than necessary.
Dr. Joe is right. When did Patch become an outlet for Fox News? I thought Patch was supposed to be focused on local news.
Just Sayin
12:09 pm on Tuesday, September 25, 2012
McClown, What you described is the actual progression of balding.Therefore, those "some people "would be correct. Also, If the house sent reasonable / agreeable items to the Senate would have no need to block them. Those among us who have reached the age of reason know who is at fault and hint...it is not H.R. and the senate. Hope you grow up before you die.
DrJoe
12:24 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
God, this troll, Nancy J. Thorner's fake right-wing outrage blog has been picked up by my local Patch. Here's my message to Patch editors:
This is not FOX news, your job as Patch editor is to provide interesting, local content that has broad based appeal to people in this area, not to allow "bloggers" to create manufactured controversy and exaggerated outrage tied to a narrow, minority world view.
Nancy J. Thorner is an ideologue who follows talking points on right-wing websites and "crafts" blogs around those talking points. That's just mediocre writing, and lazy editing.
People read this trash and tell their friends about the "article they read in the newspaper." Sadly, some people have a hard time telling the difference between opinion and news.
Sorry to diminish what I believe the expectations of Patch are, but you keep posting hot-button social issues (religion and politics) with the misguided belief that you're providing what we want.
McCloud
2:42 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
Thank goodness for 382 filibusters, or our debt may be over 25 trillion by now. What action did the Obama team not get a chance to try? More jobs bills that funnel money into bankrupt green companies and create no jobs? Good grief.
DrJoe
4:25 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
More jobs that funnel money into bankrupt green companies? I'd like you to present some hard examples of this with the exception of Solyndra. One examples doesn't make a pattern. Gosh, I thought the government wasn't a job creator, small businessmen like Mitt Romney created jobs.....
DrJoe
4:28 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
Congratulations Patch! You've now become no better than the primordial slime that is the Daily Herald comment section.
McCloud
4:49 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012
The list is rather old, but you can have fun and google the company followed by the word bankrupt. Solyndra, Abound Solar, Energy Conversion Devices, BrightSource, LSP Energy, Evergreen Solar, Ener1, SunPower, Beacon Power, ECOtality, A123, Uni-Solar, Azure Dynamics, and now Solar Trust.
McCloud
10:15 am on Friday, September 28, 2012
Is the pattern you were looking for?
DrJoe
10:39 am on Friday, September 28, 2012
Well, credit for actually providing a list, but you fall short of demonstrating how green investment hasn't created jobs. Out of more than 5000 solar companies (just one of the green technologies) you've named a handful, many of which are still in business.
The fact that solar energy can't get a foothold is disappointing, but it's not a reason to abandon ship. The grants were given in lieu of tax credits, and for a percentage of infrastructure development, hardly throwing money away.
Investing in the future of energy technology is risky, but with the massive resources of the government, it gives the technology the best chance of surviving.
Considering the technologies that were shepherded from government investment, (chips in your cell phone, GPS, touch technology, the bloody Internet) I can't image why you wouldn't want to see this succeed, unless you simply have an axe to grind with the President.
McCloud
12:42 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Just wondering is it difficult to be a liberal, always avoiding the truths presented and paraphrasing some nonsense?
DrJoe
5:12 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
It must be nice to live in your black & white world. It must simplify your brain power to immediately cast things as only good or bad.
To quote the last President who balanced the budget: "Just because government does some things wrong, it doesn't mean it does all things wrong"
Face it, you couldn't have cared less if Bush had invested in Green technology that didn't pan out. You didn't care about his $10 trillion deficit (not including the budget surplus) but your going to railroad Obama for a program in which a handful of companies trying to grow an industry couldn't make it work. When he was governor of Mass, Romney invested in a solar company that failed too...FYI.
Somewhere in the nonsense, was the fact that government investment actually grows the economy, creates technology that we use every day, and does create jobs. Regardless of how a handful of solar companies did.
You are one of those "let them fail" guys, especially if we can blame the democrats for political gain.
Now go put your head back in the sand.
McCloud
5:21 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Who had a $10 trillion deficit? I suggest you start understanding some of the elements before you form an opinion. Start with understanding who the people leaving the bankrupt green companies are, and where the money sack ends up. You know, the guys who used to run the Kremlin had ideas like yours, and somehow they never could make blue jeans like Levis to satisfy their comrades. Chevy Volts are mere footnotes in history after wasted taxpayer money, see the one guy at the top approach to what he thinks never works. Did you miss out on the great American history lesson at some point. Good God.
DrJoe
7:29 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Bush left office with a 10.6 Trillion deficit. He took office with a surplus. Surely you can do math.
Now, I'm not sure how the Kremlin fits into this, but why you people insist that under Obama people suddenly became corrupt. People have been ripping off the government since long before $200 hammers became news. But before you start pointing the finger a the hundreds-of-millions that you think solar companies walked away with, try a little introspection and think about how many trillions of dollars were inside all those Halliburton armored suitcases.
I don't disagree that, if there is truth to what you're saying, the solar companies shouldn't have done what they did, but why the outrage now?
And again, I'll state, "ideas like mine" are what have made our country successful, and kept us competitive globally (iPhone technology, the INTERNET). You're ignoring all of this to get across some point about communism that falls flat. I'm so sick of right-wing extremists like you who throw around "communist this" and "socialist that" at any idea that doesn't fit their 1950s ideals. Maybe you yourself need a history lesson that includes more than just things that happened in the US.
I'm done with this, I tried to listen objectively to the green energy thing, but your unwillingness to see the hypocrisy in your argument is exhausting. You and Nancy have a nice time together at the Vampire Ball.
DrJoe
7:37 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Honestly - do you, anyone in your family, or anyone you know have any firsthand knowledge of Communist Russia? Did anyone in your family have to escape Stalin? Did anyone in your family try to escape Hitler or die in a concentration camp?
Until you can answer yes to those questions you ability to invoke "Communism," "Socialism," or even "Hitler" for that matter in any way that relates to the Obama Presidency shows in real terms how close minded and mis-informed you are.
McCloud
7:50 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
You actually have no idea what you are talking about. I've heard this same thing from others. Try learning more about the national debt, budgets and other economic terminology, frankly I don't wish to expel the effort to explain. Bottom line, you fell for the Bill Clinton surplus charade. I'm called an extremist because I see how Obama has spent much more in four years than all other Presidents combined, and I see a problem with that. The history lesson should be for you, along with basic economic terms. Wow, I'm shocked at how there are people out there who are easy prey to Bill Clinton shanigans.
McCloud
7:51 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Your name isn't Paul by chance?
McCloud
8:09 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Until you grasp basic economic terminology, this discussion is over. How embarrassing. for you
McCloud
8:17 pm on Friday, September 28, 2012
Another uneducated liberal goes BLAMMOOOO