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That's Cutting it Awfully Close, Tim
12.011 trillion is the operative figure. At least, it was on November 20th, after dipping quite significantly over three days. Given that $44 billion in 2 year notes were issued yesterday, and $42 billion in 5 years along with $32 billion in one month bills should be winking into existence today, the Treasury better be refunding something like $25 billion or more- or some interesting reductions better have hit the books over the weekend.
We are very excited to see the latest figures. (And how much is left over in the cookie jar for Chairwoman Bair's solvency issues).
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Looks like an even greater degree of extend and pretend with bank insolvency. No matter what the fiscal issue, NOBODY on the Team wants to touch on the debt ceiling boost until HCR is in the bag.
Team Obama wants this pesky overlimit issue to vaporize. Just keep the zombies on feeding tubes a few more months.
Just like other government agencies can retroactively "adjust" their numbers once "new and more accurate information" comes their way, I foresee some backdating, adjustments and recalculating just around the corner.
I can't wait to see the day when the Treasury tells us they've adjusted down the number by $200 Billion because some chump in accounting was using a calculator that only displayed 10 digits and thus was coming up with bad data. After everyone was issued "Big Red Calculators" the error was found and corrections promptly posted.
http://www.bigredcalculator.com/
Ha. I bought one. How can you pass up a calculator with 16 digits? When we're writing personal checks for $10,287.56 at Safeway for a basket of groceries, you'll need the extra digits to balance your ledger at month end.
I bought a number of them for my office and home when they first came out. Not only is the price right for a decent calculator but it has big buttons and you're able to scroll backwards through your calculations to see where it all went wrong. Plus it's solar powered so when the world ends and the power's cut, I'll be the only one left with an operating calculator capable of finishing the paperwork. :>)
Did I mention it has BIG buttons. No more "fat finger" excuses from me anymore.
Darn it, I keep a debt clock on my blog copied from Zfacts.com, and it's reading $12.122 tril right now. I hate to libel the Treasury this way, but I have no way of running the clock in reverse.
They have it at 12.03
http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html
I have a debt clock wristwatch, the clock face extends all the way to my elbow
Zap
I just did a easy calculation about the 12.011 trillion debt.
If you wild take 1 dollar bills and place them next to each other, you could COVER the EARTH 84 times!!!
Wouldn't that be nice, you need money? under your feet are packs of 84 dollars. (one footprint would be 400 to 500 dollars.)
You could also place one 50 dollar bill, one 20 dollar bill, one 10 dollar bill and 4 dollar bills on top of each other to save some paper.
I say that, because if with that debt, and if they would actually print so much money, THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY TREES LEFT!! (and I also think that there wouldn't exist any green ink anymore to :) )
just use red ink
the congress critters would raise the ceiling but they are busy with healthcare...
Ummmm .. $92.78 billion matures on Friday (CUSIP=912795Q53)
Which is the same day that the recent $118 in auctions you reference will actually be ISSUED, and thus be reflected in the Treasury's figures.
That's more than $25 billion, so they've got that going for them. And that's nice. Nice find. Excellent news for Shelia!
On your deathbed, Marla, you will receive total consciousness...
So she's got that going for her, which is nice.
The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking.
Marla: thank you for keeping us informed on this very interesting matter.
I wonder if our owners have ever had to manage this degree of acrobatic plate twirling ?
No.
And if you'll look more closely, it's not plates but chainsaws.
It's one of those things that either you do it exactly correctly the very first time you try it... or else you die horribly. Some people live for life-affirming challenges like that every day. It helps if you know you have the full faith and credit of the American tax payer to sew all your limbs back on for you and make you whole.
cougar
Somehow that self-help mantra comes to mind:
"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"
Is it me or is anyone else wondering why they don't raise the debt ceiling? Now I hate to think negatively of the congress critters but is anyone else get the terrible feeling like they might try to put a rider on a debt limit increase...you know something that might normally be really hard to pass. After all it seems like the debt limit is a slam dunk for a pass. Granted I would LOVE to see there be no increase and either the gov shut down or them to openly engage in accounting fraud, both would make me laugh.
yeah, like a health care bill.
Thank God, they don't need to shut down to engage in accounting fraud
Since I don't really know, being a common serf, I'm guessing it's a PR thing. Health care is up, Obama is going to announce 34 k soldier increase (at a cost of 34 billion per year), and the budget is 3.4 tril versus 1.9 income. It just, you know, looks bad. But some quiet 3 am, Sunday, when everyone's gone home for the holidays, they'll get right on it.
You know, for a common serf, you're pretty smart.
They don't call it Black Friday for nothing.
Dumb question, but what happens if they go over the limit?
By law, they can't. So what if they do it anyway, with much handwaving and apologizing, or retroactively find they have gone over the limit ('according to our revised figures....').
Does someone get arrested? Does the government pay a fine? If so to whom? Do the global economic folks somehow lose more confidence in the dollar? Or in US economic policy?
In short, is there any relevance to this? Or will it just be another set of speeches by lawmakers and various talking heads?
I seek to cure my ignorance.
Some lifelong bureaucrat mentions it to a Congressional committee in a hearing broadcast on C-SPAN at 2am Sunday morning. The two Congress-critters in the room (combined IQ: 80) mock him while trying to create good soundbites for their next campaign commercial. Life goes on.
With one party rule, you seek neither forgiveness OR permission.
The Ethics Committees will review the oversight.
so, it's back up to almost $12,012,...