As of January 13, 2006, the national debt of the United States of America is $8,158,672,995,833.87, or 8 trillion, 158 billion, 672 million, 995 thousand, 833 dollars and 87/100 cents. For those of you who might be keeping track of just how conservative those conservative administrations might be, when Bush assumed office in January, 2001, the national debt was approximately $5,674,178,209,886.86.
When Clinton won office and assumed the presidency in 1993, the national debt was approximately $4,064,620,655,521.66, meaning that there is a $1 trillion 600 billion dollars or so increase over his 8 years in office (remember the debt totalled $5.674 trillion). Dubya is setting records that even tax cutting Ronald Reagan couldn't best, as under Dubya and the GOP stronghold, Shrub in 5 years has increased the national debt by $2 trillion 500 billion dollars compared toward Clinton's 8 year $1.6 trillion.
Stay with me below...
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/...
for info from the time Clinton took office
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/...
for info to the penny, at least until 1/13/2006.
The national debt is divided into two catagories, i.e.:
Debt held by the public (meaning this debt is sold to others in the form of treasury bills, notes, bonds, and US savings bonds) which equals $4,705,500,368,407.39 of the current national debt; and
Intragovernmental holdings which includes debts owed by the US Gov't to programs such as social security, medicare, pension funds, etc. (all of which have been collected in surplus for years, with the surplus added to general revenue spending for day to day operations and and iou added toward the IGH - which will have to be paid back at some point), which equals $3,453,172,627,426.48
Going back to the "debt held by the public", a good portion of this $4.7 trillion is held by foreign interests. The largest foreign holder of publically owned debt is Japan, who owns some $1.2 trillion of the debt. China owns some $225 billion (both as of March, 2005).
Both China and Japan are also the largest current holders of US reserves, meaning these countries hold large numbers of US Dollars, with Japan holding US dollars of $824 billion and China $818.9 billion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/...
from that article:
The nation's reserves of foreign currency, which economists estimate are between 70 per cent and 80 per cent in US dollars, have almost tripled since the end of 2002, lifted by about US$170 billion of foreign investment, a cumulative trade surplus of US$160 billion and billions of dollars of capital inflows betting on a rising yuan. China revalued its currency by 2.1 per cent against the US dollar in July and is under pressure from the US, Europe and Japan to let the yuan appreciate more.
The central bank bought US dollars from commercial banks first to maintain the yuan's peg against the greenback. Since the July 21 revaluation, it has bought US dollars to limit the currency's gains, which have been kept at a total of 0.5 per cent.
The European Commission told its governments that China might invest more of its reserves in other currencies, putting pressure on the US dollar.
When you add this information to the fact that most countries keep US dollars on reserve because oil is traded in US dollars, and Iran is setting up an exchange that will not trade in US dollars but in the Euro...the investment of Chinese "dollars" into other currencies, as well as their huge demand for oil products, might give us an inkling as to the trouble that arises ahead..
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
If China and Japan both began dumping their US reserves, and then began calling in their USA debt holdings...where would this leave us?