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The Real U.S. National Debt Is $222 Trillion, Not $17 Trillion
Sunday, March 17, 2013 13:17
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Think the U.S. national debt stands at roughly $17 trillion? Think again. If this outrageous amount wasn’t bad enough, the actual national debt is closer to $222 trillion, according to Prof. Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University. This is the real debt when you count all of the federal government’s unfunded liabilities for programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
What is frightening is that the debt increased $11 trillion just in the last year to reach the sum of $222 trillion. This puts the real budget deficit at ten times the official reported number. Indeed this makes the talk from Congress about cutting a couple trillion dollars in spending over a decade seem rather trivial – and ridiculous.
222 is my number. So that sounds about right. -Mort
Why don’t they cancel debt instead of exterminating people?
You can’t just “cancel debt”. It’s not like we have a Reset button (although that’s basically what it’s going to take to get us out of this).
The problem with our debt is that we don’t realize that inflation is *real* and sitting around 10%/year. Other countries keep giving us goods and we pay for it in IOUs. It’s like asking your landlord to put your rent on an IOU and the day they come to ask for your money…SHTF