Jul 13 2009
If you stacked up a billion dollars it would reach 333 feet high
That’s in thousand dollar bills by the way. If you stack a trillion up, that number grows to 68 miles. You would have to do it in thousand dollar bills because if you did it in one dollar bills from the earth it would reach almost all of the way to the sun.
If John McCain had spent three and a half million dollars for every day of his life he still would not have spent a trillion dollars to this day, and that guy is old. Like older than the state of Alaska or M&M’s. But back to the point, a trillion dollars is a lot of frigging money.
You know what would really suck? If you owed someone a trillion dollars. Can you picture the trouble whoever you owed that money to would go through to get it back? This sounds like the plot from a lame b-rate action movie - “Introducing Ocean’s Fourteen, because we just didn’t play this out enough in the last one.”
Unfortunately this isn’t about the latest Hollywood action flick though, it’s about our government, a government that has pushed the federal budget defecit to over a trillion dollars.
Folks, something has to give here. This kind of spending is unsustainable. I don’t want to sit here and say that we do nothing like those guys, but the fact is we have to cut back, period. Running two wars, being one of the leaders of the free-world, giving billions in support to other countries, bailing out industries that don’t produce a profitable product, using up 25% of the world’s oil, outsourcing jobs, running one of the largest and well funded militaries in the world, the Federal Reserve manipulating our currency - - something has to change. A lot of things have to change.
Because if they don’t, it’s going to be bad. Really bad.
The Obama administration estimates a $1.84 trillion deficit for this year, followed by a $1.26 trillion deficit in 2010. The administration puts its’ defecit totals at $7.1 trillion from 2010 to 2019. The national debt currently stands at over 11 trillion dollars. Interest rates on our debt alone cost 452 billion last year, what is that number going to rise to in 2009?
What happens if we can’t pay back that money that we owe, if China stops financing our debt? Would the dollar collapse? That’s worst case scenario though, what are we going to do when hyperinflation kicks in due to our government printing all of this money out of thin air?
I’m scared. I am legitimately afraid of how this is going to work out, because we are treading on thin ice. The money figures we’re playing around with are astronomical, and the consequences are terrifying.
Keep spreading the word! maybe the public will open their eyes!
somehow the debt does not worry me as much as other things I see in the world - I was always under the assumption that you had to spend money to make money and as long as you were making money debt would begin to decrease - it may take a minute but once things start rolling in the right direction the debt will begin to dwindle.
Now the hate in the world - hate directed at the US, the wars and violence, the threats of nuclear war - we are spread too thin - these are the things that worry me the most because I see no end to it - just more hate and if some itchy finger hits “the botton” our debt will be the least of our worries.
The environment worries me also, the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breath - somehow even the resources we harvest from deep within the earth (are they replenished??? does it upset the natural balance of the earth??? when the earth does that wobble on it’s axis will the natural resources we have stripped from its core have an effect on this shift???) - the diseases that travel from one to the other in no time at all - all of these things worry me more than money.
I believe that as long as America is America we will survive the debt issue.
Good read. Another issue that nobody is mentioning is the interest that goes with borrowing money. Glad you pointed that out in your article. The numbers are scary and should China decide to collect, what would the government do?
To some who believe you have to spend money to make money: How many people do you know that have ever spent their way outta debt?