US debt clock runs out of digits

[Diogenes]

The US government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiralling figure. The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount. The board was erected to highlight the $2.7 trillion level of debt in 1989. The clock's owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt.

BBC NEWS | Business | US debt clock runs out of digits

a quadrillion dollars of debt...yeh, the check is in the mail

[Thanatos]

Ever get the feeling that your entire life is lived inside a phantasmogorical bubble of imaginary cash? A feeling like all our wealth and power is just an ephemeral hallucination that will only go on as long as we keep smoking more and more loans? The feeling that outside your bubble there's a reality, and when you run out of people to lend you money you might have to deal with the reality that your nation hasn't really exported anything in decades?

[ironeagle]

I know we live in make believe money land. I hate using this example, but i made a point out of this notion to a Huckabee representative once, when he came to an Iowa Fathers meeting to try to get support for Huckabee when he was stil running. I told him why it is Huckabee and others haven't realized a good portion of our problem with people not being able to pay for housing is, yes the over all cost, but why might someone buy a home they can't afford? It isn't just because they thought they could because some guy said they could afford it at the bank. I know for a fact due to statistical research that, because almost all child support orders are set higher than the affordable income of the parent, it makes it so the custodial parent wil expect say $800.00 per month. So using this income expectation millions of custodial parents have bought homes based on this child support. The problem is this support is equivelent ot monopoly money, because quite frankly the funds to pay these debts do not exist. So when the ncp canot pay thta $800.00, the custodial parent loses it, not thta they shuold have had it in the first place, but that is causing the circulation of make believe funds, loans based on make believe money thta isn't coming in. I do believe it has attributed to a major sector of home loss. The thing is though the same is true of the ncp's who are trying to keep up with child support gouging, they too are loosing their homes when they pay that $800.00 a month because there isn't enough left to pay their own mortgages. The reason this happens is because the state and general public do not care about ncp's or wether they can afford their own housing as well as the cp. This is a bad economic plan for america one whihc is never discussed and I would like to see our government start to agknowledge this crisi publicly. So fra the only reason they don't is because of the federal incentive dollars it rakes in to the state when they charge high and outrageous child support. This problem is huge, and the method is inefficient, and causes people to believe they can afford things they actually cannot afford, and it also allows cps to be given more and more fake money awards when they pick houses, and cars that are more luxurious than really they are entitled to.