Straight from the website of the House Committe on the Budget, Chairman John Spratt (D-SC):
The national debt on October 15: $9,046,845,839,388.48
Your share of the national debt: $29,844.60
Wow! After paying off your credit card loans, student loans, and mortgage, there’s still more debt to be paid!
The Fed should just buy back all those bonds, then we’d be set.
Ohhhhhhhhhh the UES sense of humor.
As a percentage of GDP, I was hoping to find we weren’t too astray from other developed nations with advanced economies. Unfortunately, the numbers are still staggering considering we are the only country from the list whose debt is actually greater than its GDP.
The following is a small list of debt as a percentage of GDP for various countries.
United States: 146% (GDP 9.046T, Debt 13.24T)
France: 74% (GDP 2.23T, Debt 1.67T)
Germany: 73% (GDP 2.8T, Debt 2.12T)
Canada: 61% (GDP 1.2T, Debt 739B)
United Kingdom: 34% (GDP 2.37T, Debt 815B)
Japan: 16% (GDP 4.3T, Debt 71.2B)
In most cases I rounded to the nearest billion. T = Trillion and B = Billion.
In conclusion, lolzomfgwtfbbq we’re in debt.
Correction, I got the debt and gdp data mixed up for the U.S.
United States: 68% (GDP 13.24T, Debt 9.046T)
In which case we are not in “lolzomfgwtfbbq” debt after all. And considering we have been at war for the past 6 years, it isn’t too alarming. Federal public debt as a percentage of GDP was just over a whopping 120% during WWII. Besides, the French and Germans still have us beat by a few percentage points, not that we want to set our standards to those of the Europeans, but just food for thought.
Call me crazy, but I still don’t feel comfortable with that large a debt. I am not sure its measure in comparison to the GDP is a relevant statistic. I’d be far more interested in its relation to sensitive sectors of the economy and the pull of other countries.
Absolutely it is a relevant statistic. In fact, it is the de facto statistic used when referring to national debts. Otherwise how could one compare a country such as Nigeria with a national debt of only $32 billion with that of the United States at roughly $9 trillion? I’m not saying the debt is acceptable, however, it isn’t as alarming when compared to other developed nations and even other points in our own history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
The relation to sensitive sectors of the economy and the pull of other countries is an important point and one which deserves attention. However, this is a separate issue which could be remedied without disrupting much of the debt, for example, through legislation designed to better protect those sectors from the debt variable. The interventionist approach though isn’t one I or any sane UES’er would advocate, but nonetheless is an example.
I think a more relevant statistic would be public debt relative to government income. (Using GDP, Y, instead of government revenue, T, assumes that the government can appropriate all of Y and put it towards debt-repayment, which is absurd.)
The graphic on the Wiki article you link to makes a nice point of the ratcheting affect of crises.