What does it mean to you that all 300 million Americans owe $28,336?

[originalpckelly]

What if someone came along and made you pay that? If we only count those people actually working, about 1/2 of the US population, we find that the debt owed is really $56,672 per person. How would you survive if someone made you pay up $56,672?

[SmokingJacket]

1. I confess it's rather abstract, to me.

How does it affect me, at the moment? I don't know. I'm convinced it will matter, eventually... but it's hard to think straight when everyone's screaming about the record-high stock market...

[Warpy]

5. Think of numbers this way

A wealthy man married the trophy wife of his dreams. Alas, there was a fly in the ointment: she insisted on having her mother move in with them. Not wanting to mess up a good thing with a young wife, the plutocrat decided to send the mother in law on a grand tour of the world. Her budget was to be $1000/day.

At that rate, for a million dollars, she'd be gone nearly three years.

For a billion dollars, she'd be out of his hair for three thousand years.

For a trillion dollars, she'd be gone for nearly three million years, meaning the same amount of time that has passed since Lucy lived in the Olduvai gorge.

That's how to think about big numbers.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. now compound the interest on top

[Deep13]

3. other: Jesus Henry Tapdancing Christ on a Popsickle Stick!

[Hugin]

4. They won't let you pay it off...

I tried once back in the '80s.

[Subdivisions]

6. Sorry, all I'm pulling out of my pockets these days is lint!

[undergroundpanther]

7. My ticket to work camp

When China and the other countries want thier"investment" IOU's back. We are So screwed.

[shain from kane]

8. I'd still be $10.00 in debt.

"...we find that the debt owed is really $56,672 per person. How would you survive if someone made you pay up $56,662?"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Doesn't it mean we're fucking over somebody else?

I mean, we're not going to pay a fraction of that debt off, and it's probably only going to get worse. Which means somebody somewhere's getting the short end of the stick. And it's probably some sweatshop worker in China.

[negativenihil]

10. Frightened! n/t

[pooja]

11. The Federal Reserve is illegal. I don't owe them anything.

They owe me. And I want our Gold back (especially that which you hijacked during 9/11).

[Elwood P Dowd]

"The Federal Reserve is not federal, and it has no reserve."

The quote my uncle use to use when describing the Fed.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. They can go knock on the billionaires/millionaires' doors first!

They can start by making them pay back five years of NOT needed tax cut! That should help some. And slash that ridiculous Defense budget by 50%. Why do we need to be the biggest bad ass on the planet anyway? Throw the re-bums out of office!

[tnlefty]

13. other: Angry and Disgusted!

Yep, that just about sums it up, and I keep running into stooopid Bushbots** who just can't believe it.

[twilight_sailing]

14. I can't prove this

but...

we aren't going to pay the money back.

US Government bonds etc. are just worthless.

Let me ask you? When are we going to pay back what we owe?


OK, I am not an economist. I may well be dead wrong.

But it seems to me the plan is to go into debt to achieve short term goals and let the Devil take the hindmost.

Appoligies if this is the stupidest thing you have ever read. What the hell do I know?

[razors edge]

15. When the petro dollar fails

as the solitary oil denomination, the bankruptcy of america is discharged. The nations we are indebted to will negotiate a repayment, at a lowed rate, and if we are as lucky as russia we will be solvent again in only 20 years or so.

the last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.