Debt Clock
Above is the link to the debt clock I showed you in class last week. Please post a unique observation or question you had while you were pouring over the data.
Post by the time we take our test on Congress.
Mr. Thompson
posted by erdecker @ 11:27 AM
37 comments
37 Comments:
One feature I found interesting was the tally of the consumer credit card debt that the people of the U.S. have accumulated. Because people now have the ability to spend more than they have, they have gotten themselves into a hole which is collectively worth about 800 trillion dollars.
Is the US Federal Spending how much they have spent just in this fiscal year?
I noticed that some numbers were being updated at the blink of an eye (like the US Total Debt and the US Gross Domestic Product), but some numbers only changed when I refreshed the page (like US Population and US Families.) Why is that?
It's interesting that the number under debt per citizen was lower in states that had lower populations where as in states with higher populations the number of debt per citizen was higher. For example, comparing Minnesota to a larger state with more people in it like California or Texas.
The US Total Debt is over 40 trillion dollars higher than the national debt. That means that the national debt is only about 25% of the total debt, which includes household, business, state and local governments, financial institutions, and the federal government.
The clock lists several liabilities such as Social Security, Prescription Drug, etc. What is a liability and how does it effect the debt?
The Debt Clock Time Machine is an interesting feature. It shows how much the debt will continue to increase. For example, our current debt is around $13,668,000,000,000. The time machince predicts that in 2015 our debt will be around $17,390,000,000,000. I wonder how accurate this will be when 2015 rolls around.
I founded it very fasinated how all the numbers changed simultaneously. Especially the Federal Pensions....what does it mean?
I saw the corporate tax clock and was curious as to what the corporate tax rates actually were. I googled it.
http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html
I found it odd that the 100,000-335,000 tax bracket has the highest tax rate, with 39%, and the 18.3 million+ bracket has less than the one below, with 35% as opposed to 38%. Can't we tax those massive companies more?
The state and local revenue stay relatively equal to each other throughout the years, while the local debt increases at a higher rate than state debt and the gap between the two grows.
I thought that it was interesting that at the bottom of the clock, you could click on one of the tabs and see how we compare to other nations spending on certain categories. I for one feel a little depressed about how much the US spends compared to the other nations.
I'm confused on what it means by US Total Debt ($54 trillion)compared to the US National Debt ($13 trillion). I also noticed on the right hand column the number of 'Actually Unemployed' grows faster than the rest of the categories in that column. Not trying to be realistic, but I think it would be interesting to see numbers magically go down at least for a second in any of the categories.
I found it interesting that according to the figures on the debt clock's site, approximately 14.2% of the US population receives food stamps. I also found it interesting, and rather ominous, that the interest on debt in quickly and constantly increasing.
What I find interesting is that the National GDP is only about a trillion more than the National Debt. Also, the debt is growing faster than GDP. What will happen when our debt exceeds the our GDP?
Why does the amount of US total interest change rapidly but the amount of interest owed per US citizen stay the same?
Of the many things that were interesting, I found that roughly a seventh of the entire U.S. population uses food stamps. That's one seventh of the entire U.S. population that, chances are, do not pay a federal income tax. The debt seems much larger, put into that perspective, if the rest of us are paying it off in taxes.
I found it intersting how much debt per citizen there was and also how much we are spending on forgein countries. Why is it that there are less people paying taxes then there is living in the US? What is the ratio of non- tax payers to people who recieve medcaid and food stamps?
Anthony Schliesman
In the year 2000, on 11/2/10, the debt was about 5 billion and counting down. 2004 7 billion, 2008 10 billion, and 2015 17 billion. My question or at least something I noticed is that before around 9/11 it was lower and going down, but since it's been going up at about the same pace, is there any chance that 9/11 triggered anything to do with debt?
I noticed that the amount of debt for a family is about 4 times the amount of the amount of debt for citizen. Is it possible that the government automatically assumes that each family is 4 people? I would think that we could safely assume that the children wouldn't have nearly as much debt as an adult.
My question is, why does the national debt increase nonstop, while the debt per citizen and taxpayer stays the same for quite awhile? Shouldn't they correspond?
I just can't believe that as of right now, I will owe $55, 5472 to the government. How am I ever supposed to pay that off? I don't think it's possible to ever be on top of the mounting debt. You can't get ahead of this.
Almost 15 million people are unemployed and 12 million more are added to that because of marginally attached workers. The thing is that all of these people are most likely in debt. They contribute nothing to the economy in terms of profit.
Aside from that point, how many U.S. Savings Bonds are there currently? On average, how much is invested in each bond?
Total personal debt was actually FALLING when I was looking at it! What the heck? That's contrary to everything I've been told about our personal debts!
I found it interesting that the federal pensions were one of the biggest budget items at 196,464,436, 562 and counting. I just wonder if government worker's saleries are too high?
I found it interesting that while looking at the US federal spending i saw that it was falling. How can it be falling though if we had already spent that much? Or is it cumulative and we have been spending less than the total amount which would make it drop?
One interesting thing I found was the "debt clock time machine". When I used it I was slightly surprised that the debt was at 17 trillion in 2015. I had expected a much higher number.
I watched the clock for five minutes, hoping something would pop out at me. I noticed that the debt per citizen and debt per taxpayer never increased. The national debt raised from $13,692,301,645,488 to $13,692,305,360,264... I'm curious where that bit of our debt is getting paid off.
I find it very sad that our federal spending and federal budget deficit are slowly dropping yet our national debt continues to rise as spending drops because we have dug way to deep of a hole and we probably won't be able to get out.
I was wondering why debt per citizen isnt rising even though the national debt, interest, etc is constantly increasing??
I was amazed by how large the social security liability per tax payer was. It was over one million dollars per person. It seems to me like we are going to have to make some cuts to social security if we ever want to have a balanced budget again. Maybe people might have to actually start saving for themselves! (That might reduce the total debt of the country, from 54 trillion dollars, I mean, come on.)
I thought it was interesting that both Local Debt and Local Revenue were higher than State Debt and State Revenue. Wouldn't one expect it to be the other way around?
Looking at the right side of the clock, it lists the total persons in the US, how many are unemployed, and those on special conditions (food stamp, bankrupt, foreclosed, etc). I'm guessing the amount of debt to be paid to fix it is figured if each and every person was able to pay it. What would be the personal debt of citizens who were not unemployed or under special conditions?
Taylor Thompson
I thought it was interesting to see the U.S. Trade Deficit hovering around 595,000,000,000 while about 253,000,000,000 of that is between the U.S. and China. Around 40% of our trade deficit is with China.
One thing I find interesting, and sad, is how small the savings per family is, especially compared to the personal debt per citizen. The sad thing is the debt is per person, while the savings is per family. So multiply the debt per person per family and even for a family with 3, that is over $150,000 of debt compared to $9,000 of savings.
I found it really intresting that 42,259,158 people are on food stamps. Its relatively poor that that many people can not afford to buy food from a super market.
I really appreciated the scope of your comments and questions ranging from concerns about our debt to the concerns about those burdens on the system eg food stamps and what they contribute or can't contribute to solving this problem. I am reminded of how Rome fell. Are we causing our own demise by fiscal mismanagement? You guys need to hurry up and fix these problems so Mr. Decker and myself can enjoy our retirement and not have to retire at age 90.
Mr. Thompson
I am actually responding about Montaigne's essay. Correct me if this is the wrong spot. However, I thought that "Of Cannibals" was a very interesting observation of a culture otherwise left unexamined. Cannibals are usually thought of negatively, as our culture states that it's wrong to eat human flesh. But Montaigne thinks this is all in perspective to our cultures own beliefs. Comparing this to other cultures is also very noteworthy, as other groups also practice cannibalism, though for various reasons. It almost makes one want to side with the author.
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