Laughing Your Debts Away

A short while ago my friend Tom - who traded bonds for many decades and knows something about debt -sent me an email that simplified the understanding of the federal debt problem. I'm guessing he thought it might end up on this blog.

Some of you might have seen the email I'm referring to. It has been forwarded all over the net since then. I added it at the bottom of this post for those who might not have seen it yet.

The national debt, as it is sometimes called, is easily thought of as something the government owes, but we all owe the money. Unfortunately, for most people it's more of a concept than an actual problem. It's why they keep voting for people like Barack Obama and George W Bush. It's also why they haven't figured out that Mitt Gingrich won't be the correct answer to the question of how it's going to be addressed.

People have a hard time relating to numbers as astronomical as those the government owes. When the numbers become so big, billions and trillions start to run together into one big imaginary number. But remember folks, a brazillion isn't just a hair removal reference and Greece isn't just a place with goat soup and stinky cheese. If you take a good look while walking along on our national journey, you can see the end of the road that we have been kicking the can along for so long. And you don't have to squint anymore.

You can go back to sleep this election and hope the nightmare is gone when you wake up, but that hope will get you just about as far as the "hope and change" the nation bought into when a bunch of Democratic marketing slicksters sold it to them in 2008.

So how can we laugh while our money burns? It's easier if you use the tragicomedy video below as a teachable moment to make it clear just how ludicrous the debt has become as the politicians spend us into oblivion in order to buy our votes. The numbers, listed below, are the correct ones with some of the superfluous zeros removed. I was laughing at the end of the video, but only because I know the joke is on us.



The email reads;

"This rather brilliantly cuts thru all the political doublespeak we get. It puts it into a much better perspective."

Lesson # 1:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts: $385

Got It ?????

OK now Lesson # 2: Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood....and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the crap?