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For every man, woman, and child in America, the country's debt load amounts to over $50,000 each. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek notes, the national debt has not always been the hot-button issue it is today. In the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Carter administrations, inflation-adjusted debt per capita dropped. Let's revisit this chart afer 3 more years of hope-and-change, when total US debt is over $20 trillion.

and while this is surging (and clearly unsustainable), compared to much of Europe, it remains low...

Edited from Bloomberg

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Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:13 | 4070631 Downtoolong

Listen up all you foreign investors in U.S. Treasurys, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….

I’m already planning to default on my share.

And no, I’m not telling you where I hid the gold I bought with the proceeds.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:17 | 4070645 Mr. Crisp

"Greed, is good" - Gordon Gekko

"Debt, is good" - our current leaders

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:25 | 4070668 NOTaREALmerican

Re: our current leaders

Yeah, and for the last 60+ years. It worked for a LONG time. Why would anybody change now.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:25 | 4070666 Seasmoke

FORWARD !!!

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:35 | 4070690 darteaus

Lean Forward!!

and grab your ankles!

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:42 | 4070722 shovelhead

Looks like that free Euro health care ain't all that free.

Imagine that.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 19:53 | 4070752 NOTaREALmerican

Re: Looks like that free Euro health care ain't all that free.

Neither is OldFartMedicare, but that doesn't stop them from bitching about ObamaCare.

Duplicity, ask for it by name.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 20:00 | 4070755 Yen Cross

We've all done this. You're at a ballgame/match drinking canned beer. You drink the beer and set it next to your seat.

The quarter/inning ends and you get up to buy a new round of beers for your buddies. You move the empty beer can you drank out of 20 minutes ago, it spills down your leg while you're checking to see how much cash you have.

That's pretty much the Fed. <> ECB relationship. ^{then you look over your shoulder at the BIS assholes in the skybox laughing at you!}

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 20:08 | 4070788 Mr. Crisp

BTST (Been There Spilled That).

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 20:13 | 4070804 Yen Cross

I like truthiness!

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 20:00 | 4070774 q99x2

I think I got em for more than that.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 20:01 | 4070776 max2205

People paying into Soc Sec?.....still? LMAO

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 21:04 | 4070906 Ignatius

$50,000?

If I write a check can I have my sovereignty and my Bill of Rights back?

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 22:20 | 4071071 Notarocketscientist

I find it amusing that there are still so many idiots on ZH who believe that the GOP and DEMS are anything but a good cop bad cop con.

Are you people FUCKING STUPID?

Your politicians are whores - they are owned by corporations and special interests. Doesn't matter which party - every single last one of them is a stooge - kept under control by campaign contributions and NSA surveillance.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 02:26 | 4071318 Otrader

I see so many posts on ZH pouncing dems and glorifying Repubs. C'mon people - just look at the chart above and tell me who the big spenders are. like the post above says - WHORES, both parties.

I kept preaching Ron Paul to the republican co-workers during the election. Their response: He won't protect Israel from Iran. Romney (douchebag) failed and Obama cont'd his reign.

"Are you people FUCKING STUPID?"

I think we know the painful answer to that question.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 13:05 | 4071098 evernewecon

A lot of people like bitcoin.

A lot of

people like public banking.

A lot of people don't like

rehypothecation of credit.

A lot of people insist a

currency can't succeed

absent a central Treasury.

Some of those things seem

mutually exclusive.

Here's one example of public

banking, not that

I mean to knock the idea.

http://goo.gl/ScF08H

Ykes.

There may actually be a

parallel to health care.

Centric to patients/providers,

rather than carriers?

Chance/risk treated equitably

(plus a (high) minimum cross-

the-board percentage of

accountable care levels still

allowing for full freedoms

after the unavoidable economic

impact of that is pervasive,

plus, of course, universality thus

tier-free by that, using simple

prior year tax returns

and no implicit now you see it

now you don't Simpson Bowles

elements) treated rather than

driving eligibility for subsidy along

monopolistic and privatizing

profits/socializing cost lines.

Risk equalization requires a central

accounting adjustment mechanism.

If ObamaCare Were Somehow

Convertible Into Bet'able

Investment Tranches,

Obviously The Patients Driven

To Subsidy By Risk Are

Comparable To The Junk

Mortgage Tranches Used For

Shorting That Emerged From

The Mortgage Packages That

Began Life Rated Comparably

To Sovereign Debt Despite

Containing ARM's Acquired

During A Time Of Artificially

Low Interest Obligating

Unqualified Borrowers.

I Want Universality, And

No Exclusions, And

Cohesiveness, But Not That.

(Bitcoin DOES remove monopoly

of the treatment of currency

value risk--but only until someone

invents manipulating it or

destroying confidence in it,

though those influences may

be temporary. So it really does

have a risk equalization value

much like the mechanism that

could be used in health care,

where increasing risk is driving

eligibility for subsidy along

an ability to pay, monopolistic,

privatized mechanism.)

Banking should enjoy all the same

right objectives.

Reverse engineering rationally and

simply as to what's needed, it doesn't

seem to be a risk equalizer, but it

does seem to be an ombudsman and

overseer of banks' net equity at risk.

Governments, like any enterprise, will

run on equity, debt and revenue.

I can't imagine limiting commerce to

the gold (as currency) lying around

the world. Theoretically, absent

Isaac Newton's return to life and

his concomitant discovery of the alchemy

of gold, the supply of gold is limited;

though, stress field detectors may push

reaching that limit far back, admittedly.

When gold and peasants' tax-paying

is insufficient, a King might

think of borrowing from a private

bank.

http://pages.citebite.com/n1t1x3k2nouw

I personally think it may have been

more recently an industrial titan

could lend to his own competitors

in one industry, that being his own,

while also being a banker, and then

flood that industry with supply, and

then call the loans, thus making

those would be competitors

sharecroppers, effectively.

That resembles the duplicitous

nature of the recent mortgage bubble;

and, some of the same banks could

even be involved; and, one process

may simply be business as usual,

carrying on fromt he earlier one.

So I think there CAN be a role, even

an inescapable one, for fractional

reserve banking.

I think privatizing profits and

socializing costs, and monopoly,

such as of the currency, leads to

unrestrained Ponzi like behavior at

the expense of the revenue suppliers.

So, I'd think remaking the Federal

Reserve as an ombudsman and

overseer of banks' net equity at risk

(in earnest) is needed.

The existing Federal Reserve may not

care to be reformed.

So we may need an American Reserve Bank.

I don't know how any enterprise, including

the U.S., will conduct business other

than with revenue, borrowing and the

full faith and credit of its currency

representing an equity in value.

So those complaining about the current system

who make major points as to borrowing

are actually invested in policy issues more

than banking per se.

There's nothing wrong with borrowing per se

so long as it's not committed to privatizing

profits and socializing debt, and monopoly,

and profiting from adversity, and privatizing

further.

The printer of our money would then be

the American Reserve Bank.

But it would still borrow from banks.

And Treasury will still need revenue.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 23:25 | 4071190 abgary1

The US won't last 3 years before the world turns on it.

Fri, 10/18/2013 - 23:56 | 4071228 evernewecon

Out untapped reserve's on the table.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-21/us-gdp-will-be-revised-higher-500-billion-following-addition-intangibles-economy

Europe's not let letting anyone shove GMO's

down their throats.

The computers and cloud services are being turned back.

So let's break US won't last 3 years down into a manageable demonstrable

example.

Handicapped export ability.

Profit privatizers/cost socializers just produce dead weight

everywhere we look.

Our own oligarchs at least aren't alone with destroying

the Arctic.

(I think Canada?, China and Russia are doing that too.)

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/29-8

The mortgage bubble recovery flim-flam:

(1 and 2:)

http://pages.citebite.com/o2c0d2e1j0mlb

http://pages.citebite.com/d1i8e3n1t3rpv

The Carriage Of Delinquent

Assets By The Public, Which

Is Essentially The Financing

Of Dead Weight So The

Buyers Of Those Investments

Can Keep On Keeping On

In The Manner Of John Corzine.

The Fact That Millions Of

Homeowners Never Left The

Position Of Being Underwater

And Literally Can't Afford To

Market Their Homes Lest

They Pay In Large Sums To

Their Mortgagees, Even Upon

Closing Of The Sales Of Their

Homes.

Even Where That Does Not

Appear Being The Case Owing

ToThe Case Shiller Index,

Nominally, It Would, I Believe

Be Far More The Case Were

More Thrift Withheld

Properties Marketed.

So that flim-flam looks like it may remain a flim-flam because of the other economic folly. Are we supposed to have anything available to us besides buying our own demise with reverse ETF's? Hedging is useful. I apply anti-fragile in process informed manners only, thinking how silly for some to believe in social darwinism while rejecting biologic darwinism. But then it becomes really useful. For instance, dissent is obviously anti-fragile. You know, some of our nation's control freaks may really be emotionally distressed. Which means we can't actually influence them, let alone fix them. So someone's going to have to do the Gene McCarthy routine and say no you're not really a new wing of the DP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhGwb7WQWb8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H7a0JTpDdA --__-- http://goo.gl/l0lOHH --__-- http://goo.gl/GmV9Ay

(on edit, may usefully position the above)

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 01:02 | 4071261 syntaxterror

Give every person a $50,000 coin with Krugman's profile on it.

Next.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 04:52 | 4071373 Peter Pan

Senator Danforth in 1992:

"I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 07:17 | 4071431 Oldwood

He must have been speaking too close to the truth, as he was gone shortly after. Truth will not be let stand by either party. They will bury people like Cruz for exposing their lies. Same as it has ever been.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 04:56 | 4071375 Peter Pan

Be prepared. When America goes down she will take her arch rivals with her. She is not going to allow anyone to remain a winner by default.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 09:34 | 4071565 roadhazard

funny, according to my books I owe NOTHING to anybody.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 12:46 | 4071796 moneybots

"and while this is surging (and clearly unsustainable), compared to much of Europe, it remains low..."

Which would seem to indicate that it can go on longer, despite the politcal theatrics.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 20:10 | 4072554 GernB

It always looks like you can kick the can farther down the road. Until you can't.

Sat, 10/19/2013 - 20:09 | 4072552 GernB

Makes you long for the good old days of Carter and Clinton :)

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