The length of America's debt (Math!)

I read this on the Ron Paul forums:



With a slight correction:


So basically, our debt is so huge, it can be its own country in size. Our debt is 42 times the width of America!!!!!

That was that attempt, check the math and see your results?



My thoughts personally? .......We're fucked.

Yes, we're fucked. But that doesn't have to be the end, for we can be like the Phoenix. The bird once died and crashed in flames, it then merged with it's flames and became an immortal beauty for all to admire. The country's symbol, symbolically is the Eagle. A once-powerful bird that is now on the endangered species list. As we 'die', we shall be reborn.

If we shake the shackles of the corporations, of the main two-party dictating system we shall revive ourselves. We'll have to declare our bankruptcy as a country and live within our means for a while, but we shall eventually return to those standards that made America great.

We're just going to have to be patient.

XKCD did a thing on this. Look at the money poster for sale on there.

The debt of the U.S is huge. You could even call it a wonder of the modern world. I'm not sure on this but is it possible to a have a debt worth more than the amount of money in circulation?

This was in 2010, it's more now but the main idea is still there(from usnews.com):

Country_________GDP (2010 est., USD)________Debt as Percent of GDP (2010 est.)
United States___$14.6 trillion________________________92.7
China___________$5.7 trillion_________________________19.1
Japan___________$5.4 trillion________________________225.9
Germany_________$3.3 trillion_________________________75.3
France__________$2.6 trillion_________________________84.2
United Kingdom__$2.3 trillion_________________________76.7
Italy___________$2.0 trillion________________________118.4
Brazil__________$2.0 trillion_________________________66.8
Canada__________$1.6 trillion_________________________81.7
Russia__________$1.5 trillion_________________________11.1

However if you are fine with Wikipedia as a source here are some of the latest figures:

Rank_____Country________________Debt(in dollars)________Date__________Debt % of GDP

1________United States__________15,041,163,000,000______30 June 2011_____________99
—________European Union________13,720,000,000,000_______30 June 2010_____________85
2________United Kingdom_________8,981,000,000,000_______30 June 2010____________400
3________Germany________________4,713,000,000,000_______30 June 2010____________142
4________France_________________4,698,000,000,000_______30 June 2010____________182
5________Japan__________________2,441,000,000,000_______30 September 2010________45

...I mean it could be worse(UK), but it definitely is ridiculous how our government could have gotten it this out of hand.

And for those who are wondering why I said the UK's situation is worse, look at their debt % of their GDP

The games you can play with American debt are quite fun. I'm pretty sure that, if all of America's debt were $100 bills stacked up, it would be twice as tall as the Empire State Building. Or something like that; I don't remember the details, because these are incredibly trivial, and I don't care about this debt nonsense.

That long Ron Paul rant totally ignores how modern monetary system works. Imagine if we paid off all debts! Wouldn't that be great? No it wouldn't! In fact it'd be a terrible situation as there'd be *no* money in circulation. I'm posting this video for the 4th or 5th time, but here goes:



Here's the follow on video:



We're in such a clusterfuck, not because money is based on debt. There are two reasons:
1) The state can't create money without paying interest to banks. This means that combating a downturn in economy can't be battled without not only incurring inflation (that's a given!), but also ever more saddling each and every citizen with a debt to the banks.

2) Because banks create money, they inevitably tax everyone else through inflation. However unlike state spending, there's no civil control on how much inflation they create.

In theory, since a bank will only invest in a loan if it can be paid back, whenever a loan is made there's a strong insurance that an equivalent amount of wealth will also be created - battling inflation - since that's the only way the debtor can fulfill their obligations.

However since finance has been taken over by the predatory parasites who spout the neoconservative slogan: "The Free Market Knows Best" & "The Free Market Does No Wrong", all regulations have been swiftly abolished or effectively neutered by co-opting the regulators. This has lead to predatory lending, where the agent consciously creates loans that will *NOT* be paid back, re-dresses these loans as "sure win" investments in the form on CDOs and sells them to some schmuck. In this "deregulated" paradise, the predatory agent can make massive profits by ever creating more debt... irregardless of what it does to society. This is what actually happened in 2008.

3) ...let's not forget the sinister math of lending in the 1st place:

Unless banks & shareholders spend *ALL* their profit from interest on the market, some people will inevitably default as there *won't* be enough money in circulation to pay back the debts.

The only alternative for such people is to take on *more* loans to finance their existing obligations... and this is exactly what all states in the world have been doing.

Meanwhile banks & shareholders have been fattening up, in what's for all practical purposes is a massive wealth transfer from society as a whole to a tiny elite. Since they *haven't* been investing this money in the US (hello globalisation!) things have been inevitably going sour (...or shitty) in the country.