But, we happen to be talking about dollars.
I recently posted two articles that address in some manner the huge problem our country is facing due to the massive debt we have accumulated. The first was about gold being an inflation fighter, and the second described the role of the Federal Reserve. In both articles I mentioned that our nation’s debt is, at $35 trillion, so large that the interest we are paying on that debt accumulates at $1 trillion every 100 days. This is not sustainable.
As long as our representatives in Washington, DC continue to spend more money than the government takes in, this problem will continue to grow until…. it stops! When it stops, it will likely be too late to prevent massive pain and hardship among our citizens.
The following article by Mike Maharrey of MoneyMetals.com is worth posting in its entirety. Mike clearly illustrates the extent of the problem. I will offer full disclosure up front that I am a customer of MoneyMetals.com. I am in no way being compensated for presenting the article and wish to thank Money Metals.com for allowing me to reproduce the piece. I have been a precious metals buyer for more than three decades. I heartily agree with the inflation-fighting power of gold and silver.
U.S. government borrowing and spending never stops.
The US National Debt Clock https://usdebtclock.org/
The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.
$35 trillion USD.
Trillion with a ‘T.’
That’s an unfathomable number. It’s meaningless to most people. We simply can’t comprehend a number that big.
Let’s try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.
According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt.
Of course, a lot of people don’t pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953 to wipe out the debt. And that’s on top of the taxes we already pay!
To put it another way, $35 trillion is more than the total economies of China, Japan, Germany, and the UK combined.Visualizing 1 Trillion
1,000,000,000,000
It’s hard to wrap your head around how big 1 trillion is, much less 35 trillion. Here are a few factoids to help you visualize just how big that number is:
- There are 1 million seconds in 11.5 days. A trillion seconds is about 32,000 years.
- If you could say one number every second, it would take about 11.5 million days to count to 1 trillion.
- If you had spent $1 million every day since the birth of Christ, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.
- If you line up dollar bills end-to-end, you could go to the moon and back around 203 times with $1 trillion. You could wrap them around the earth about 3,893 times.
- If you stacked up 1 trillion dollar bills, the dollar tower would rise to 67,866 miles.
- If a cup of coffee costs $3, you could buy 333 billion cups of coffee with $1 trillion.
- If you had 1 trillion dollars, you could give every person on Earth approximately $125.
- One trillion grains of rice would weigh about 20,000 metric tons.
Keep in mind that all of these examples only illustrate the size of $1 trillion. The national debt is nearly 35 times that number.
James Madison once called a large national debt a “public curse.”
“I go on the principle that a Public Debt is a Public curse and in a Rep. Govt. a greater curse than in any other.”
We’re certainly cursed to the tune of $35 trillion USD.
Thomas Jefferson said he considered “public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”
In his Farewell Address, George Washington urged us to use debt sparingly – and, get this, actually pay it off as quickly as possible!
“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.”
We failed to heed the warning of the Anti-federalist writer Brutus.
“I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.”
And here we are.
About the Author:
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
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