The U.S. National Debt has now increased more during Obama’s 3 years and 2 months squatting in the White House than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.
The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since Obama began squatting. [Source: CBS News]
Our human mind seizes up when we see stratospheric numbers of a billion, or a trillion, or worse still, 15 trillion.
We’ve seen a number of striking ways to put into perspective our morbidly obese national debt of $15+ trillion. Here’s another way, explained by Duquesne University economics professor Antony Davies.
The United States currently pays 3% interest on the federal government’s debt of $15+ trillion — an interest rate that’s the lowest since the 1960s. This means interest payments on America’s national debt is THREE TIMES the annual operating expenses of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
But the long-predicted rise in interest rates (and of inflation) is beginning.
If the rate rises to 8%, which is what it was 20 years ago, interest payments on the debt will be larger than the annual cost of every war the United States has ever waged combined. The more money the government is spending on interest, the less money it has available to provide other services and entitlement payments, including Social Security and Medicare.
In other words, paying interest on debt is a really really really stupid way of spending money. That’s why sensible people either don’t get in debt or if they do, try to pay off the debt as quickly as possible. (See how a middle-class family succeeds in being debt-free and accumulating $1.5 million in assets, here!)
So what should be done?
Like the finances of a family household, the federal government should take advantage of today’s low interest rate and pay off as much of the principal as possible now, before interest payments rise to unsustainable levels.
H/t LearnLiberty and ZeroHedge.
~Eowyn
Well Americans better get ready to wave bye, bye to The Dollar being the World Currency! So many do not realize how big of a deal that would be. If or when it looses that position, the “Entitled” citizens Obama has been giving money right and left to, are not going to know what the heck hit them. Ppl will have to start taking jobs that they think are “beneath” them, just to survive…which is what it used to be like. You used to WORK your way up, u werent just handed the position at the top. Maybe it has to happen to get people’s attention. I just wish we could learn “to learn” from our mistakes.
And guess what…debt doesn’t just magically disappear w/o some form of payment! It makes me sick that Americans are so self involved that we have actually hung our own children out to dry! When a person dies….someone is still responsible for their debt. My dad has always told me that “You ALWAYS pay for the good things upfront, and the bad things later!” IMO, finances are no different than how you raise your kids. (if you think I’m an idiot, then all I can say is…..there is a good chance that I would feel sorry for your children…….and your finances!)
How do you say “We’re sooooooooooooooooo forked,” in Chinese?
-Dave
I pray Skippy isn’t re-elected…can you even begin to imagine how much more he wants to spend? Ugh…
It’s high time to reinstate Glass Steagall and shut down the bankrupt banks including the FED. We need a new National Federal Bank through which Congress can utter credit and issue it as per the Constitutional Mandate referencing this. We don’t need to borrow other peoples imaginary money that isn’t based on the return on a decent investment.
If our Government issued credit for decent investments, then the return on the money invested, uttered as credit by the congress for decent projects, would not go to the Hedge Fund managers and CEO’s of dubious banking institutions, and the firewall erected by the Glass Steagall Standard would protect We the People from predator merchant bankers and their speculative gambling habits. Their’s is a virtual economy, and doesn’t have anything tanbible attached to it, if we were to invest in things as was the Hoover Dam etc invested in, then you can actually see tangible results for years and years and these projects have a beneficial effect on the lives of We the People, and they fulfill the promise of the way God created us, that is in his image, to be creative as he is creative and contribute to the way the world is developed, to irrigate land, and plant crops that will feed our people and also that cause for rain to fall and all sorts of other exciting things, which will be greatly enhaanced if we continue in the tradition of JFK and go ahead with the exploration of space where lots of mineral resources are to be found.
Also to make efforts to protect our planet against being hit by meteorites etc would be a good thing, once we have gotten Obama safely installed in a golf course of his own forever, and a proper lot of people running this republic and helping the rest of the world to avoid further futile wars which at this point look as though the advanced weapons of mass destruction mankind has so cleverly wrought will wipe us off the face of the Earth, unless we get a move on and take the necessary steps to get ourselves rid of the banking cartels that are so greedy and want to get rid of most of us in the shortest possible time. I say NO in the Name of Jesus.
Hello! Should we reinstate the Glass Steagall standard then the gambling debts of the banks and hedge funds would be separated from the commercial debts of the nation, if it were applied globally, then it would be a global application of the Glass Steagall principle.
Then because there would not be enough “cash” left in the oligarchical monetary system, because so much of it has been frittered away with bailouts etc. then in order to finance a world economic recovery, that is a human economic recovery, not a recovery of the oligarch’s monetary system, then to get things going in a scale of magnitude to correct the collapse of civilization as we know it, we would have to revert to the US Constitutional mandate, whereby Congress would utter credit to back the projects that will advance civilization and put everyone back to work. We need to develop our nuclear fusion and fission power plants and to build a mag lev railroad system world wide. We need to educate people in the way that allows them to be creative as God created us to be ,in his image. We need to work hard to improve our environment to enable us to provide the food and keep natural disasters at bay as far as possible.
We need to continue on with our exploration of the Galaxy in which we exist and stop spending money on wars which will only lead to thermonuclear confrontations which will be the extinction of mankind in a NY second.
The current president has to be retired ASAP and we need to get people in government who are sane, and know about the history of America and the way it came about. Read about Nicolas de Cusa and Charlemagne and check out their ideas and see how they thought and spend a lot of time praying for God to save us from our sins and help us to be all that we can be. Amen.
Even if the pile of these bills reached the stars, they still would be worthless, so forget about it!!!!!!!!!!
We need CREDIT uttered by Congress that is used for
good things. The FED and their debt is not ours, it is not legit. and we have to hand it back to them, and let the oligarchs eat it.