us debt clock......

[scott delaney]

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time#

 

[swanny]

Where can I get me some of that Assets per citizen? I'm way short of $297,037....

 

[GBuck]

This looks a lot better.

State of Indiana Debt Clock

 

[Theox]

Read this for an interesting outlook on that clock you speak of...

Understanding Government Debt

 

[Theox]

also, Ireland looks a lot worse...

World Debt Clocks

 

[swanny]

Theox,

This article is slightly mis-leading. It is possible for a government to go bankrupt borrowing against the same currency it creates. Basically creating bonds to pay off past bonds without reduction in debt will eventually result in rating decreases ( E.G. We were downgraded from AAA to AA+ making it more difficult to borrow on the international market ) In the long run this will raise interest rates. In theory this could eventually lead to hyperinflation causing the collapse of the value of our currency.

 

[Theox]

I understand that it's not completely fully representing the eventualities at steak, but even hyper-inflation is recoverable. Look at Germany, for example. They're virtually the go-to case-study for hyper-inflation and they're doing a whole hell of a lot better than most countries today! What hyper-inflation really ends up amounting to is the gov't literally stealing from the average person in order to devalue the debt they owe, thereby making it easier to pay off. It's effectively an additional, rather transparent tax that effects everyone simultaneously.

In all honesty though, this is just my take on it. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no econ teacher and there's a lot of big ideas one has to take into account when examining these things, but that's what I've gotten from my own research into it all...

 

[swanny]

You are correct. FYI what Germany had to do to stop hyper-inflation is replace their currency twice, the second time with a gold standard currency which basically means the country can no longer run in debt, which means reduced handouts, limited government size.

There are ways of course to help protect yourself from hyper-inflation if you knew if/when it would start.
1) convert currency to physical items ( Guns , Gold, Silver, ETC )
2) exchange for a currency that is stable. ( Who knows anymore )

 

[Birds Away]

It's sad. My grandson just turned five months old yesterday and he is already over $50,000 in debt. Going to have to have a talk with that boy.