The national debt has ballooned at an exponential rate.
It is now clear that not only does the US treasury owe China, Japan and the UK, but America actually owes Iraq and Iran. I break the figures down and show how much each taxpayer owes.
It is incredible that each American taxpayer owes more to foreign countries than would be enough for two or three years of an Ivy League college education, or a substantial portion of a mortgage.
Details, graphs and a poll after the fold.
I searched with the tag "debt" and didn't find a previous diary on this issue, so if anyone is aware of a previous diary, please post a comment.
From the Wikipedia (I know, not the most dependable source, so exercise your judgement)
Lendings to a national government in the country's own sovereign currency are often considered "risk free" and are made at a so-called "risk-free interest rate". This is because the debt and interest can be repaid by raising tax receipts (either by economic growth or raising rates), a reduction in spending, or failing that by simply printing more money. Some economists argue that, in an economy near the full employment, this would increase inflation and reduce the value of the invested capital.
Does any of this sound familiar?
On the day GWB was inaugurated, January 20th 2000, the US national public debt was $5,706,174,969,873.86 . That is $5.7 Trillion. link
This amount of debt took more than 60 years to accumulate ($43 Billion or $0.043 Trillion in 1940). link
link to source of image
As of today, April 26th 2008, the national public dept is $9,336,003,148,312.77 . That is $9.3 Trillion.
That is an additional $3,629,828,178,438.91 in the past 7 years. That is $3.6 Trillion. It is 38.88% of the total national public debt.
Reagan started the downward spiral with an exponential rate of borrowing, and Bush Sr. maintained the pace of adding to the debt. Clinton was able to slow it down a bit, but ended up adding about $2 Trillion to the debt anyway. Had the economy continued to add to the debt at the same pace it did in the previous 12 years (Reagan/Bush Sr.), the contribution of the Clinton's years to the national debt could have easily been $3.8 Trillion.
This becomes more obvious when the inflation rate is taken into account.
link to source of image
This $9.3 Trillion means that each American citizen is $30,722.58 in debt (based on an estimated population of 303,880,819).
However, according to the IRS, the number of individuals filing returns in 2006 was 133,917,068. So the average tax payer owes $69,714.81.
It is estimated that 25% of the debt is owed to major foreign holders of treasury securities. These are basically a big batch of IOUs that are auctioned off every quarter to foreign governments. (This does not include holdings by individuals). So roughly $2.325 Trillion are owed to governments of other countries.
The top five lenders?
. Japan: 28.75%
. China (mainland): 19.4%
. U.K.: 5.67%
. Brazil: 2.83%
. Oil exporters*: 5.16%
*This is listed only as a group without the details for each country.
Here is a list of those countries: Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain,
Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.
In essence, America owes money to a country it invaded [insert photo of me with jaw falling to floor] and a country it classifies in the "Axis of Evil" and threatens to bomb.
If we were to say that around 20% of the debt in 2008 is to China (based on the proportion of the debt in the 2007 figures), that would mean the US Treasury owes mainland China $465 Billion. (and another $62 Billion to Hong Kong)
That China debt (combining mainland and HK portions) translates to $3,935.27 per American taxpayer!
This really freaks me out! Not only will the future generations inherit this, and it could possibly change the quality of life of Americans for decades to come, this could possibly be influencing current and future foreign policy in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that would generally escape the scrutiny of the MSM and may never become public "knowledge".
I do hope that the Kossaks reading this would discuss the different ways in which this could alter US standing in the world and its foreign policy.
Peace.
UPDATE#1: Thanks to Triscula, I found some typos and fixed them. Did I miss any?
UPDATE#2: Wow, I'm honored to have been added to the rescue list!
Thanks to NCLIB, I corrected another typo.