http://www.usdebtclock.org/
This is what it looks at a given instant. Click on it for a larger image.
Smack dab in the middle of the page is the "US Total Debt," which is about $59 trillion right now. "Total debt" refers to what everyone in the country owes, citizens and government alike.
Besides my fascination with numbers that change every second (you have to admit, the effect of the whole page is pretty cool), I really like how easily the page breaks down the financial state of our country. Not only does it show the rate at which total and national debt are changing, but it also displays the spending of our largest budget items, the total amount of assets for various entities, and our GDP.
If you are interested in time travel, go up to the top righthand button on the page and check out the "Debt clock time machine." It allows you to go see what our finances looked like on this very day 34, 24, 14, 10, 6, and 2 years ago. For those who like to look to the future, the site's time machine also allows you to travel 4 years ahead in time to see what our country's financial situation will look like in 2018. As you can probably guess, our debt (both national and total) will increase by a lot. To $22 and $60 trillion, respectively.
Anyways, feel free to add anything else you find about our country's debt. :)
Ah I thought this clock was so cool Katherine! I had no idea that the national debt was this big.
ReplyDeleteI did a little research, and found that the debt just reached $18 trillion last Friday! Under President Obama, the national debt has increased by 70%, for it was at $10 trillion in 2008 when he came into office (which you can see using the time machine function on your clock!). Many believe that this new milestone, reaching $18 trillion, coupled with the Republicans taking control of the House in the recent 2014 midterm elections, will reignite Republican scrutiny for Obama and the way he has handled the debt. Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (both Republican) are striving to repair the national debt in order to prevent placing an irreversible debt on the current generation's future children and grandchildren. If anyone can find a concrete plan of what the Republicans intend to do to fix the national debt, let me know! I found a couple resources with different taxes they might plan to impose on the public, such as one on gasoline and one mainly on the lower class, but I wasn't sure if they were legitimate.
On a completely different note, I found this twitter account that tweets the national debt everyday and whether or not it has gone up or down from the day before. I just thought it was funny that it's probably someone's responsibility to tweet the national debt everyday. https://twitter.com/nationaldebt
Thanks for the post Katherine! When I first read the title, I thought you were referring to the debt clock in NY by Times Square (which I will talk about a bit below on the same note). I think that it is important for us to realize the debt that we are in and the trends that are being shown by this. It's easy for us to just watch the numbers flip by, but that the fact that we are in debt by the trillions is truly crazy when you think about it. Thanks for allowing us to see deeper into that!
ReplyDeleteThe thing that I thought you had been talking about originally, like I said, was the National Debt Clock in New York. It was first developed by Seymour Durst who held very strong opinions about exposing the public to this problem and allowing intergenerational equity. He held very strong beliefs that people in future generations not be burdened by past mistakes; therefore, he wanted everybody else to be able to realize what load the US was under in real time. I think that this idea of keeping this display, whether it be on the government site or on twitter as Jenny mentioned, is very valuable as we are given access to this information for reflection on what duress the country is really under even as we live our day to day lives. I think what Seymour Durst said is a very interesting point that it is important to stare at the ugly truth every once in awhile regarding our national debt since we are not the only ones being affected, since there is still the posterity to come after us.
Since you mentioned the New York Debt Clock, I'll add this. A few years ago, the clock ran out of space. When Durst created it, he did so to draw attention to a $2.7 trillion debt. When the debt reached $10 trillion, they had to add a 1 to the dollar sign's panel. They are planning to add 2 more spaces, making the clock able to display debt up to a quadrillion dollars.
DeleteSource: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news?ContentRecord_id=E307C602-802A-23AD-47F2-DF5EF717F70D
Hey Katherine, great post! This is really interesting (and also kind of terrifying because $18 trillion is a LOT, especially when you take into account that there's only $1.29 trillion in circulation in the US right now).
ReplyDeleteI found some more facts about the debt just to add on to everything that's been said. For example, if the national debt was divided evenly among everyone in the US, it would amount to over $56,000 per person. The debt is currently equal to 102% of the gross domestic product, or GDP, of the US, which means that we owe more than the value of everything our economy is making. The debt is at the highest percentage of the GDP that it's been since World War II, when it was a little less than 120%.
Basically the reason for the debt is government spending. While the government has spent less on national defense and military expenses since the 1960s, it's also spent significantly more on social spending, which is for things like welfare, healthcare, and education. Obviously the government is working to fix the debt, but it's going to take a lot of time and reform, especially when you take into account that the debt is still growing on average by over $2.4 billion every day.
Hey Katherine, loving the post!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that our debt had grown so much. I thought we were still at $10 ish trillion but we are at $18 trillion.
One thing that surprised me were the facts of income of each "class" and the expenditures of them.
Poor: income: $17,563
expenditures: $24,806
Average: income: $63,685
expenditures: $49,705
High: income: $247,261
expenditures: $123,056
With this type of trend it seems like that the poor of the nation, every year are pushing themselves farther and farther into debt. While the middle class, is just getting by. And the rich are getting richer faster. These stats show how the top 1% of the nation own 40% of the nation's wealth. This amazed me, we make fun of other countries for having governments that take all the money for themselves, but in our case instead of the government its the top 1%.
http://www.ibtimes.com/consumer-spending-how-much-their-income-do-poor-rich-american-families-spend-housing-education-0
Also, I have two questions that I couldn't seem to find out online:
1) Are the state debts taken into consideration for the national debt?
2) Does the US government care anymore about how much the debt is growing? (I heard something like this on the news)