Talking About Debt

As many of you know, one of the subjects that hold great interest for me is economics. I stumbled across this site, The Bureau of Public Debt, which is primarily responsible for reporting facts and figures related to national debt. I have become increasingly convinced that as a nation we will not be able to live out our a sense of caring of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" because over time all of the air will be choked out of the room by crippling debt.

Further, as a person of faith, I strongly believe that debt and economic squandering of resources reflects badly on a person, a community and a nation. It is among the kinds of real wrongs for which the people of God got into trouble in scripture.

And so, particularly in light of this editorial, I have begun thinking about the impact of long-term debt. The impact on my children. The impact on this nation. The impact of a crippled economy vis a vis the atrocious and viscious attacks that occurred yesterday and will likely occur again this year if previous patterns of terror hold true.

Toward the goal of getting a better picture of analyzing debt, I did what geeks and project managers like myself always do...I build a spreadsheet:

Date Measured	Deficit In Real Dollars	% Growth	President
7/6/05 *	$7,842,026,166,045.39	38.21%	W. Bush
9/29/00	$5,674,178,209,886.86	39.60%	Clinton
9/30/92	$4,064,620,655,521.66	56.19%	Bush
9/30/88	$2,602,337,712,041.16	279.76%	Reagan
12/31/80	$930,210,000,000.00	42.33%	Carter
12/31/76	$653,544,000,000.00	82.54%	Nixon

* This figure is obviously not complete. The best available estimates I could find put the total deficit by 2010 at over $10 Trillion. Shocking.

One more calculation before you go, being the stats geek that I am. Since 1968 the deficit has grown 2190%, far outstripping both the pace of the economy and the pace of any future economy to repay this debt.

Comments

[Brother Maynard]

Excellent stuff, Will. As a Canadian, I'm happy not to have to participate in paying this off. It's somewhat awkward to be critical, but not so awkward that I wouldn't do it ;^)

I've long felt this is highly unstable... some countries have very ill-advisedly tied their currencies to the US dollar, which may eventually be disastrous. Because the US is a superpower, things get overlooked, the way the inner workings of large corporations like Enron, Worldcom, and Microsoft go overlooked.

The USA is no more able to pay off its national debt than is Mexico. Eventually, something has to burst.

[Marilynn]

Scary.

[Debra Riley]

083506: Hey, does anyone know where I can find a list of gas stations with low prices in my area?

[Allison Trump]

This is cool, you have to try it. I guessed 30122, and this game guessed it! See it here - http://www.funbrain.com/guess