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It Will Take 398,879,561 Years To Pay Off The US Government's Debt
Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
The US government’s debt is getting close to reaching another round number—$18 trillion. It currently stands at more than $17.9 trillion.
But what does that really mean? It’s such an abstract number that it’s hard to imagine it. Can you genuinely understand it beyond just being a ridiculously large number?
Just like humans find it really hard to comprehend the vastness of the universe. We know it’s huge, but what does that mean? It’s so many times greater than anything we know or have experienced.
German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel managed to successfully measure the distance from Earth to a star other than our sun in the 19th century. But he realized that his measurements meant nothing to people as they were. They were too abstract.
So he came up with the idea of a “light-year” to help people get a better understanding of just how far it really is. And rather than using a measurement of distance, he chose to use one of time.
The idea was that since we—or at least scientists—know what the speed of light is, by representing the distance in terms of how long it would take for light to travel that distance, we might be able to comprehend that distance.
Ultimately using a metric we are familiar with to understand one with which we aren’t.
Why don’t we try to do the same with another thing in the universe that’s incomprehensibly large today—the debt of the US government?
Even more incredible than the debt owed right now is what’s owed down the line from all the promises politicians have been making decade after decade. These unfunded liabilities come to an astonishing $116.2 trillion.
These numbers are so big in fact, I think we might need to follow Bessel’s lead and come up with an entire new measurement to grasp them.
Like light-years, we could try to understand these amounts in terms of how long it would take to pay them off. We can even call them “work-years”.
So let’s see—the Social Security Administration just released data for the average yearly salary in the US in fiscal year that just ended. It stands at $44,888.16.
The current debt level of over $17.9 trillion would thus take more than 398 million years of working at the average wage to pay off.
This means that even if every man, woman and child in the United States would work for one year just to help pay off the debt the government has piled on in their name, it still wouldn’t be enough.
Mind you that this means contributing everything you earn, without taking anything for your basic needs—which equates to slavery.
Now, rather than saying that the national debt is reaching $18 trillion, which means nothing to most people, you could say that the debt would currently take almost 400 million work-years to pay off. Wow.
When accounting for unfunded liabilities, the work-years necessary to pay off the debt amount to astonishing 2.38 BILLION work-years…
And the years of slavery required are only growing.
As an amount alone the debt is meaningless, but in terms of your future enslavement it can be better understood.
To put this in perspective even further—what was the situation like previously?
At the end of the year 2000, the national debt was at $5.7 trillion, while the average yearly income was $32,154. That’s 177 million work-years.
Again—wow.
So just from the turn of the century, we’ve seen the time it would take to pay off the national debt more than double. That means that more than twice as many future generations have been indebted to the system in just 14 years.
It sounds terrible, and it is. But remember, your future generations will only be indebted if you let them be.
What the US government does may affect everyone, but it’s up to you whether or not you and your children are directly enslaved and tied to the system.
Break your chains while you can and set yourself and your offspring free.
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I repeat:
Who specifically is not going to get paid?
And, what exactly are they going to do about it?
How many years for "minimum payment" only?
LOL, we can pay it off at any time, simply edit some computer files.
Of course, we'll only print money to give to the rich, and no printing for the little people.
"Let it RIDE!!! WooHoo!!!
Riding the Nuke across the Arc
"The current debt level of over $17.9 trillion would thus take more than 398 million years of working at the average wage to pay off."
Hey.....5 billion years to go until the sun burns out. Free plasma TVs for everybody! There's still time!
What if all us cross the boarder to Mexico for a year and see what happens
Memo to self:
Don't send em a fucking dime.
400 million years begins with today.
and that's why you will want to join millions of americans in donating to the cause
https://www.pay.gov/public/form/entry/101/
just fill out the form.
then wear the "I Donated to my Country" button
it's that easy.
hah !!!
from the top of the "pay.gov" you linked out to:
"Alert Message (effective 10/18/2014): On Tuesday, September 16, 2014, some payments made using credit or debit cards through the U. S. Department of the Treasury’s Pay.gov system were inadvertently charged twice for a single transaction."
even the people trying to "help" get screwed ...
pay.gov my ass. These assholes have stolen every bit of current and possible future productivity I, or my offspring will ever have. Their minions proclaim that they're just doing their job, and they will never know- never mind admit- that they killed their own society.
C'est la vie! Such is life when the vast majority are willfully ignorant.
So...much....rhetoric...
some folks say PTB lied for many thousands of years...
and some other folks lied that Earth is 400 million years old (only?)...
so their lies "lie" somewhere else?
They have no intention of paying back after piling and piling for thousands of years and then not even intended to pay minimum payments for 400 million years? Damn smart, imho.
Muppets are , um, ants, no?
...fuck...Hozier..what the hell is this? It was on a shitty pop station. listened to more. its decent. I DONT UNDERSTAND.
If I had the faintest clue what you mean, I would respond. But, I don't. So, I won't.
I feel sorry for the poor schmoe that has to work almost 400 million years to pay down the debt.
um, it was 40 plus trillion quite a few years ago...........mid nineties or earlier. but, I quibble......
Hush. This is the Obamas fault. And the libernazis. And FUCKING JEWS. FUCKADUCKME
At this point in the game it really doesn't matter any more...
Just have the government take over the Fed and print an 18 trillion dollar high stack of Federal Reserve Notes and ask the bondholders if they want their money now like everybody else or when they mature.
Plus you immediately get rid of that pesky deflationary risk they keep yammering about...
Here you go again. Bitching about the government on the internet created by the government.
What happened the 1 Trillion dollar Krugman Koinz? We'll get that shit paid off in a few minutes!
Answer key:
1. You
2. Nothing
Social Security?
That's the only claim I have on government debt.
Already factored out of my financial plans, long ago.
Your parents and half the people on ZH didn't factor it out. THey're counting on it. They want to get rid of other gov features. Just not the ones that benefit them. SHHHH. Its a secret.
thats the wrong way to look at ... to start with the purpose is not to pay off the debt, but the rollover ... so stop the calculations there is no intention of paying it back ... it has already beem paid many times over
Derivatives are going to implode.
They'll just hyperinflate their way right out of this.
Elsewhere: Rosie O'Donnell (!) defends Monica, blasts Bill
http://tinyurl.com/khjfcgn
The other point is that the debt never has to get repaid. As long as nominal GDP rises faster than the debt, the debt to GDP ratio declines.
Since we're going to be counting hookers and blow as a part of the GDP and raising the GDP at this rate every year is about as reasonable as raising the dead to contribute to the workforce, we might as well get every man, woman, child, and hermaphrodite to do their civic duty and snort, smoke, inject as much class A drugs as the CIA can supply them. And yes, fuck each other for money too. Wait a minute......Seems quite a lot of the population are way ahead of the curve. Progress!
Maybe the govt should start playing megamillions.
OK, so we're gonna lay that all on ONE guy to pay off?
I'd hate to be that guy. That would royally suck. He has my full sympathy.
Could be worse, though. Could be me.
Come on, NoDebt, with a name like yours, you're the perfect guy to take on the challenge.
So it is worse. It will be you. I hope you won't take a selfish point of view on the matter. Think of all those people you'll be getting off the hook.
And you have my full sympathy.
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-09-18/
Scott Adams and his cohorts are smarter than any of us.
I could probably invent something to pay off that debt, but I know that an equally complicated system would just tax me for it an make me feel creepy.
Man, those pols who spent it all better start saving in something other than FRN's.
Sounds like they're broke ;-)
398,879,561 Years ???
Sorry pal, even the "Long Enough Time Line" isn't that long.
Full disclosure, I've already got plans in place to default on my share.
US Debt Clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
game plan = let the us economy turn into a zimbabwe economy with 100000% inflation for 1 year,then pay off debt,then return economy back to as it was. their you go i solved the debt issue
Because we all know that Zimbabwe's economy is a veritable powerhouse. Not saying your solution isn't possible, or even probable. I do think it may come with some unintended consequences.
Also important to re-emphasize what you mention because it really is worth it: the guy who writes the article didn't factor inflation in. That would shorten that time horizon substantially.
Anyone who is anti-gold, or anti-silver, please take note. Feel free to invest in stocks if you wish, but remember that very few real assets are as suited as an inflationary hedge.
Hyperinflation, do it for the children.
We owe it to ourselves...no problem.
/sarc
lol...I owe myself a yacht, crewed by Venus bikini models.
Problem!!! ;-)
I thought my children and grandchildren were going to inherit this debt....I don't think they're going to live that long.
The current debt level of over $17.9 trillion would thus take more than 398 million years of working at the average wage to pay off.
100 million working adults, taxed at roughly 1/3 leaves 66.7 million working adults, so roughly 6 years to pay off the debt. Problem is, every penny would go to servicing the debt. So, account for government operations would skim off at least 85% of that or 40 years. That is non payable.
Dismal Stagflationary Depression and only the upper echelons of financial institutions (banks, Wall Street and so on) got the QE life boats from the Fed:
http://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclopedia/en/thumb/5/51/CaptObviousTita...
Fuck you, I don't owe SHIT but what I borrowed myself. And my figures look a lot different from yours.
I don't give Jack-shit about this country's debt. The bulk of it, as with the bulk of global debt, is illegitimate anyway, so fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.
I'm not working on payroll anymore, not spending my money on retail. I'll buy what I need, of course, but from local producers when possible. And whatever 'wealth' I have, I'll keep in useful commodities that I HOLD, never FRN's and never in a bank.
I'm not contributing to this anymore. It's stupid and pointless, and I am not insane. I can put a lot more effort into keeping what little shit I have than TPTB can afford to expend taking it. The ROI just isn't worth it.
Future FEMA recipient.
It will be paid with blood and land aquisition.
These numbers aren't that hard to grasp. The US spends about $2 trillion per year in defense if you include the CIA, NSA, TSA, and other operations. Half that and fill the deficit. Then reduce spending by $1 trillion per year (about 25%). Doing both of these things you could pay off the debt in 18 years.
Liabilities are still a problem, particularly with gaps in the ponzi. Only solution there is to reduce benefits.
Unfortunately, there's no way this would happen.
Not my debt.
Didn't sign for it. Didn't co-sign for it.
The banksters did steal the loan-money from us, so actually they owe it to us.
However, my guillotine can pay that shit off in about a week if operated at full-tilt.
An American, not US subject.
Like a good Bordeaux, you keep improving with time, my friend.
Yeah, this is a great place to learn and be stimulated, mentally, that is.
Commenting, writing, here is also a pleasure, as one can refine their thoughts and knowledge and then hone their writing skills. Great feedback too.
May not be changing the world here, but I am much improved for when the time comes.
Now back to thinking while I attend to guillotine maintenance.
An American, not US subject.
At that point, bugs will rule the earth.
And bugs are notorious deadbeats.
I am getting sick of these over optimistic, pie in the sky, liberal bilge articles.
But only one vote to settle the debt .
Like WW I debts in 1931
Swept under the carpet . Nobody except Germany repaid their WW I debts to the US .
The inverse is likely .
Or , the US can call in the debts(with interest) . They are still in moratorium .
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401804606.html
In 1931 the Hoover Moratorium provided for temporary cessation of all intergovernmental transfers to cope with the international banking crisis that accompanied the Great Depression. After the moratorium expired, the debtors found various excuses not to resume regular payments. By 1934 every European nation except Finland had defaulted.
"Swept under the carpet . Nobody except Germany repaid their WW I debts to the US ."
Germany is still paying israel and the BIS for the holohoax, er holocaust.
Thats where the kikes get their submarines.
394 million years? That's peaches and cake!
It is very interesting to see the "Earth Democracy" does not have to try to shove up your ass the rest of the world, such "democracy".
The bad guys can vote in municipal elections, do not vote directly for the president or governor.
A lot of judges nominated by the party do what they want to arrest a woman for not cutting the bushes in front of house arrest children using too much perfume.
You are fucked socially and intellectually.
Financially or spoken, printed dollar (which actually was never printed, only exists in the memory of great servers in the form of bits and baites) was already!
Pulp in the world miss your great country tried, at least try to print such quantial paper money.
You do not see "economists" saying that I spoke in the paragraph above.
Think about it why China, Russia, India accumulate gold.
Brazil and South Africa do not need, have gold buried in droves.
You in the Western Hemisphere North lost the sense of what a society is, people who interact and seek to live in peace.
Do not come bitching to this that I'm aggressive and live in a third world country, not!
Those who always want wars for resources are you, for my part I'm just defending myself - for now.
May believe that there are many people in the world like me and, hah, I am a Roman Catholic Apostolic.
hehe.
Sweet!
That is about half the half life of U235.
Since the fuku-you disaster, that irradiated the planet with fission products thanks to the kosher nostra controlled nookular mafia,, about the time we get the debt paid off some of the radiation will be gone.
So we have that going for us, which is nice.
This is child's play. You just increase the average salary to $398 billion and we can pay this off in a day and have cash left over for all the stuff we need or want.
We won't even need Social a Security anymore.
/sarc
Zero Hedge has it completely backwards, again. It's not difficult to think of US Treasuries as 'debt' because we won't ever need to pay it off. What's difficult to imagine is that it is, and it really is, a unit of American Hegemony and the safest and best investment available. It is 'wealth' not 'debt'. As it's supply grows it still cannot satiate the demand. It is something that everyone owns and expects to live off of in retirement, including 80 million US baby boomers. Why would you worry about it being paid off?
Its also helps that most Americans aren't familiar with what happened to Argentina the last time it went under...
Slavery? You're soaking in it.
The amount of debt is so obscene that I have to believe that there is some 'alternative plan' in place. Perhaps the Fed buying all the debt? Or the US Mint making 18 One Trillion Dollar coins. Or the introduction of 'new dollars' to replace debt in 'old dollars' (killing any savings or 401K plans but saving Social Security and Medicare). One thing is certain - the US Dollar will be devalued.
The US Government parody, the US taxpayers American Express credit card will accumulate points to buy back debt.
/sarc
hah !!!
from the top of the "pay.gov" SafelyGraze linked out to:
"Alert Message (effective 10/18/2014): On Tuesday, September 16, 2014, some payments made using credit or debit cards through the U. S. Department of the Treasury’s Pay.gov system were inadvertently charged twice for a single transaction."
even the people trying to "help" get screwed ...
I say fuck it give me another credit card and I'll max that one too!
Just upped my credit line on one of my CCs. Fuck it.
That's why "DEBT" is a four-letter-word in English.
It's easy to point the finger at government debt and say "bad government", but don't forget to also point the finger at private sector debt and say "bad people & corporations". When every nation and a great majority of individuals and companies are "bad" (in debt), then it's a better idea to point the finger at the money system itself, one in which the majority of money is created when a loan is made.
Because money IS debt in this banksters' paradise system, you can't have money (and maintain prices) without rolling debt. Any attempt to pay down debt results in the elimination of money, which is deflationary unless it matches a coincidentally shrinking economy. In this ridiculous credit money system, total debt is a proxy for total money which should be a proxy for total value of goods and services in the economy but isn't.
Instead, what credit money suggests is that should all debt be paid off, almost all money (>95%) would be eliminated and the prices of all things in the world would fall drastically. That's crazy but it's the reality. People calling for sound money understand this, but where they usually fall down is the need for money supply to be both flexible and decentralized (why gold cannot work).
So just to maintain proper prices under credit money, net debt must be continually rolled, expanded or contracted, to match the real value of net goods and services. (It's actually worse than this because loan creation does not include future interest payments, net debt must therefore increase over time like the Red Queen running faster and faster just to stay in one place).
The fact that credit can be so easily expanded and contracted is the reason that we have it as a dominant form of money (it easily tracks changes in real economic activity), but it's a very shitty trade-off against the fact that credit supply is controlled by banks, credit money is ephemeral (while real goods and services are not), and usury guarantees asset confiscation.
Debt can be rotated between private, public and foreign sectors, but it cannot simply be paid off. Not until the US returns to a Chartalism can this be changed (as it had briefly after the Revolution and then again during Lincoln). Banksters control this money system and require that government debt increases if private debt decreases.
The truth of this is evident in a graph of sectoral balances:
http://cloud.concertedaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/US-Sectoral-...
Just look at it. A public sector deficit tracks a private sector surplus with the difference being made up by the current account (foreign sector). It sums to zero and in a credit money system, it can be no other way.
If you're debt free (as I am) then good for you, but never forget that your surplus is only possible because of an equivalent deficit elsewhere in the system. This is the madness of a credit money system. It is impossible for everyone to be debt-free in this system (there would be no money) so when guys like Simon Black pontificate about being debt free, they're just being cunts.
Debt is here to stay while the banksters control the money system. So either roll the guillotines or quit bitching about how bad debt is and quit patting yourself on the back for how great you are to be out of it.
+1 for that. I like what you had to say for the most part. What happens if I decide to max out the credit cards on physical metal and then just decide that I will not pay? What will they do?
I'm whatever a think tank dreams up, conjures on and still gets wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRBjllPjoJk&sns=em
Outclassed is a word you probably don't mention public wise, lunch break you give up, don't feel bad it isn't the first time kids
Cntl P and resulting inflation will take care of everything. Nothing to see here.
The sun is gradually getting hotter. In about 250 million years, the Earth will be out of the habitual zone. The oceans will boil away, and all life will cease to exist. We need a different payment plan, or why bother paying off other peoples debts.
the plan is war. money is always going to be around. those who control the money supplies just want to make sure they have a hand in SETTING UP THE NEXT WAR SO THEY CANNOT LOSE the control over money supplies , REGARDLESS OF WHO WINS.
ordinarily kings used to sometimes COIN MONEY. but bankers have been very friendly with any other bankers in other countries that can control the money, because its easier to make deals with them than kings.
when there are no bankers to make deals with they fund anyone who supports revolution and plunder.
i am still highly confused as to the nature of the central bank operations in russia. some people say putin is a globalist oligarch himself part of the grand conspiracy ( having lived in saint petersburg and been close to europe and speaking german)
other say putin kicked out the rothschild oligarchs ( yes some of them were jewish you antisemites) and sent them packing to london. is sperbank a rothschild entitiy? why is there all this bullshit between the atlanticists and their outward hostility against russia? is it a black or white deal , the bankster shadow alliance, or lack therof with putin? or , are they simply just trying a semi tempoary position for heading into advanced shadow bargaining with putins central bankers or--putin--if he is the central banker.
it's very hard to ever know. but i'm convinced here that the bankers know war happens with or without them, and that they are going to front run it. why bother letting someone else plan out the next war, when you can?
if you know where things are going , and you plan ahead, everyone else comes out behind before you do.
Why bother with "average income"? A few 0.01-percenters could pay it off in a few weeks.
No they don't. Let us just assume 100 billonärs. Then the would need on average 18 billions to pay of the debt. So no they can't do that in a "few" weeks. It would cost them all, and sorry for what. For a state which has a higher leven of suppression then ever before? And you believe that would make it better. Sorry, to trust the state is the most stupid thing one can do.
Why do we keep on bringing up this childish meme? The debt of the US cannot and will not be paid because it doesn’t exist. I say again, it doesn’t exist.
Whatcha taking bout Willis?
The problem is that we still call it “debt” as if that term could possibly apply to fiat currency. It does not apply because it is the incorrect term. If you borrow, let’s say, 100oz of gold, you would be expected to repay 100oz of gold plus whatever interest (time cost) you agreed to. But, if you are a government, borrowing an ephemeral symbol that you can print at will, why is it a loan? Answer: it isn’t.
OK, so let’s do a currency 101. Those ZHrs that have been around for more than a few days feel free to skip this paragraph. Every unit of US currency in existence today is derived from debt. Some, is created from consumer debt (credit cards, car loans, mortgages), some is created from corporate debt and some from government debt. When the .gov borrows a Benjamin it’s not really borrowing anything. In the case of foreign lenders, it is merely repatriating the Benjamin’s you used to pay for your iCrap. In the case of the Fed, it is creating it out of thin air. But, what about interest? What about it? Interest are more imaginary units introduced into the market. They do not exist as anything more than an accounting entry.
When .gov creates more money that it removes from the system in the form of taxes, it is called deficit spending. Or as I like to call it, business as usual. All its doing is adding to the overall volume of currency available in the system. And yes, every unit of currency in existence devalues the previous units, I hear ya. Yet, it is not really a loan now is it? It is created out of thin air and if it were to be paid back it would return to thin air. It’s nothing more than VAPORWARE.
So, does it matters if the .gov owes 7 trillion or 700 trillion? Nope, not a bit. The interest they pay to the Fed goes back to the Treasury in essence destroying the units that were paid as interest. Does this much vaporware devalues the units in your pocket? Yup. But, it’s your fault dummy!
We have been trained to believe that units of currency are wealth; therefore we “save” our excess production as currency. But, we all know that the currency is been devalued daily. So, why are you using currency as a savings mechanism dummy? You wouldn’t save your bonus check in extra milk and fresh fish would you? Why are you saving it in a mechanism that is designed to spoil?
So, how do you save your excess production for future consumption? In wealth dummy! What is wealth you ask? Really Skippy? Wealth is a material resource that sustains or improves your life! Productive farm land, water wells, solar production systems, food production, hell a PS3 is a better storage of wealth than currency. So, get off currency, and stop caring what games they play in NY and DC.
When you are that deep in the shit what's another Trillion.....
If you look at a breakdown of US government debt, the majority of the $18 trillion debt is owed to American citizens and not to foreign citizens.
If America defaults it is the American citizen who will be affected in the majority.
I frequent a website where all the nay sayers say that "government debt never gets repaid, the debt just gets rolled over, so there's nothing to worry about"
It appears that some people don't give a fuck.
Nobody panic! I just printed out my own 20 trillion dollar bill. I will personally pay off the entire $17.9 trillion. Your welcome. Change please.
The US national debt is more of score card for all the free money the USA enjoys. Nobody will ever get paid .
Probably.
But those nobodies will be mostly American nobodies who won't get repaid.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/monetarypolicy/f/Who-Owns-US-National-Debt...
Now thats funny.
As the Prez Bush said : 'By that time we will all die' (so do not worry)