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Australian households are in record levels of debt, and for the first time have surpassed American levels. Reserve bank figures show household debt - the combination of personal and mortgage debt - is equivalent to Australia's GDP. That means every adult owes an average of $74,000. Analysts warn that the financial crisis that rocked Main Street in America could well hit Australian families in 2010. Economics Professor Steve Keen at the University of Western Sydney says it is a sign that families are under financial stress. "We now have an enormous proportion of income that has to be devoted to...

WASHINGTON -- * The Senate voted yesterday to raise the ceiling on the government debt to $12.4 trillion, a massive increase over the current limit and a political problem that President Obama has promised to address next year. The Senate's rare Christmas Eve vote, 60-39, follows House passage last week and raises the debt ceiling by $290 billion. The vote split completely along party lines, with Democrats voting to raise the limit and Republicans voting against doing so. There was one defection on each side, by senators up for re-election next year: GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio and Democratic...

President Obama's rhetoric may sound like a deficit hawk and voice of reason, but his actions don't match his words. The Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat President, is a prescription for a financial train wreck. They are addicted to spending your money. And not only is your money being used to buy votes from the public, but it's also being used to buy votes from other representatives like Mary Landreau and Ben Nelson. Who would have thought that "Hope and Change" would be so expensive?

Late this December, the Unites States Treasury will reach the $12.1 trillion statutory ceiling on the national debt. It will mark the 91st time Congress has had to raise the debt limit since the original $43 billion ceiling was established in 1940. Many on the left argue that the United States federal government can borrow and spend as much money as it wants, and that any concerns about what it might cost us in the future are just a Phantom Menace. But as the chart to the right shows, we are already paying a hefty sum in monthly interest payments...

If the economy would just die, already, maybe the Democrats would STOP wasting any more time trying to kill it. On second thought, naw… like a serial killer, they simply enjoy plunging the knife into the victim too much... This will most likely be another “Let’s slip this through in the middle of the night” deals. Maybe they can lock out the Republicans from any debate again like they did with the health care bill. No point in having those negative nabobs of negativism putting a downer on the party, eh?

Watching the Senate press last week toward passage of President Obama's universal health care, my Red Alert is forced to contemplate whether a socialist agenda is intending to bankrupt the United States with trillion-dollar social-welfare programs there is no way the country will ever be able to afford. In "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," I clearly established that Barack Obama is trained in the Saul Alinsky "Rules for Radicals" methodology of lying to voters to disguise a true intent to transfer wealth from the "haves" to the "have nots." But as we watch President Obama...

Take a gander at a seriously disturbing chart of just who owns the national debt, and how much ... for this year alone.

Obama's Debt Crisis How much is the National Debt costing America?It’s interesting to note that the total interest paid on the National Debt since 1988 has been $7,393 billion (that’s $7.4 trillion). That’s a lot of money being wasted by politicians in Washington, D.C. and there are not enough people talking about it. There is an even more deafening silence regarding what the cost will be over the next 10 years. The United States will pay almost as much interest as it did over the last 20 years in just the next 10. And no one in Washington is addressing...

As a share of GDP, the U.S. Federal debt held by the public exceeds 50 percent in FY2009, the highest debt ratio since 1955. Projections indicate the debt ratio may be in the 70-100 percent range within ten years. In many respects, the temptation to inflate away some of this debt burden is similar to that at the end of World War II. In 1946, the debt ratio was 108.6 percent. Inflation reduced this ratio about 40 percent within a decade. Yet there are some important differences –shorter debt maturities today reduce the temptation to inflate, while the larger share...

Ignoring The ProblemThe Cost of Paying the Debt NowBy starting today, the Federal Government can pay off the National Debt in 30 years by making interest and principal payments of $699,013,323,930.52 per year (see the chart below). In Fiscal Year 2009 the government made interest payments of $383,656,592,545.78. So it would take an additional $315,356,731,384.74 in annual payments to completely extinguish the debt in 30 years. By starting now, the total cost of interest will be $8,883,038,042,900.88, at 4%, over 30 years.Opportunity Cost: Waiting until 2019If the Federal Government chooses to wait until 2019 before addressing the debt, the cost...

GDP vs National Debt - The Raw TruthI am still mulling over the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ recent, erroneous, GDP projection after my last post Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Mumbo Jumbo. One aspect that was not addressed previously was the pace at which our National Debt is catching up to annual GDP.The question for today is what will Gross Domestic Product need to be in 2019 in order to keep pace with the Federal Government’s ruinous spending? And based on the answer to that, at what pace must the economy grow annually? If we add the CBO’s 2010 to 2019...

The Federal Government can pay off the National Debt in 30 years by making interest and principal payments of $699,013,323,930.52 per year. In Fiscal Year 2009 the government made interest payments of $383,656,592,545.78. So it would only take another $315,356,731,384.74 per year, or about $1,051 per capita to completely extinguish the debt. Since this will cost $8,883,038,042,900.88 in interest (at 4% over 30 years), I would suggest that you get started right away.If you politicians were serious about fiscal responsibility, surely you could find a way to cut spending by $315,356,731,384.74 per year. I mean after all, many of you...

GDP vs National Debt - The Raw TruthI am still mulling over the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ recent, erroneous, GDP projection after my last post Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Mumbo Jumbo. One aspect that was not addressed previously was the pace at which our National Debt is catching up to annual GDP.The question for today is what will Gross Domestic Product need to be in 2019 in order to keep pace with the Federal Government’s ruinous spending? And based on the answer to that, at what pace must the economy grow annually? If we add the CBO’s 2010 to 2019...

(VIDEO): The national debt has gotten to be so gargantuan that it's hard to wrap your head around it. Once you get up in the hundreds of billions and trillions, it becomes so unfathomable that it's easier to avoid the topic than it is to deal with the anxiety, fear, and uncertainty that the numbers bring. This very brief video (see below) makes understanding the national debt much easier to grasp...

When President Barack Obama entered office in January, the greatest problem America faced was neither the war in Afghanistan nor the recession. It was the imminent crisis of the welfare state. Not only has Obama failed to deal with this crisis, he is pursuing policies that will bankrupt America. In March, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, led by former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, calculated the total value of the federal government's "unfunded liabilities" as they stood at the end of fiscal 2008. These liabilities include the publicly held portion of the national debt plus the amount the government must...

Since Obama is rather attached to describing everything he does as “unprecedented”, “I have achieved an unprecedented level of transparency”, “I played an unprecedented amount of golf this year” and “I just wasted an unprecedented amount of money”... in honor of the Liar in Chief, we can make “unprecedented” the word of the day. First up is Obama’s unprecedented deficit. The current real cost of ObamaCare is up to 2.5 Trillion dollars and rising. The Senate Republicans’ chart demonstrates that the total for all of these costs—based on CBO projections for the bill’s true first 10 years—is $2.5 trillion. And...

Building the case for a brand new jobs-creation bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says most Americans would not mind inflating the already-gaping deficit in exchange for more jobs.

Many conservative sources have been predicting problems for the United States Economy based on the record-setting national debt whose growth has been accelerated during the first year of the Obama Administration. Today in a front page, top of the fold story, the "Bible of Progressiveness," the NY Times has joined the conservatives in predicting severe problems for the US economy based on the fiscal irresponsibility of our government. In this first article of a series, the Times looks at the structure of the debt and how it looms as a danger on the country's horizon. The United States Economy has...

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all. Many citizens probably still cling to the old saw that public debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” Wrong. Debt always matters. And as for whom we owe it to, it is a lot of kind (or, at least, not yet unkind) strangers. As recently as 1970, foreign holders of U.S. debt were essentially non-existent. But their slice of our obligation pie has steadily increased, especially over the past two decades,...

May I suggest amending Harry Reid's Health Care Plan to Connect it DIRECTLY to future Senatorial Junketing Funds? If, in any future year, This {Reid's} plan adds to the National Debt; the SENATE MUST cut it's next year's Junketing Budget by 50% {from THE Prior Year's funding}. While "The House" writes each Year's actual Bill, IT [The House] Must respect & include this Portion of this Bill. A 'Sense of the Senate' letter to Pelosi {suggesting a similar addition to the House Junket Budget process} would be a Natural.

Tuesday, the national debt hit a record $12 trillion. Wed-nesday, the Obama administration said Medicare and Medicaid fraud in 2009 accounted for more than half of the $98 billion in government waste it is willing to admit to. Wednesday, after claiming for months that huge government debt was good for America, President Obama admitted his profligate borrowing and spending threatens the nascent economic recovery. Wednesday evening, Senate Democrats wheeled out their $849 billion version of Obamacare, which would cost many times what they say it will, kill untold thousands of jobs (see Aetna), impose hundreds of billions in new taxes...

File this one under, "Who cares?" Mark Knoller at CBS's Political Hotsheet: It's another record-high for the U.S. National Debt which today topped the $12-trillion mark. Divided evenly among the U.S. population, it amounts to $38,974.34 for every man, woman and child. Technically, the debt hit the new high yesterday, but it was posted on the Treasury Department website just after 3:00 p.m. ET today. The exact calculation of the debt is a 16-digit tongue-twister and red-ink tsunami: $12,031,299,186,290.07 This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion...

The United States' climbing national debt could drag the country into a "double-dip recession," President Obama warned in an interview with Fox News Wednesday from China, though he said he's still considering additional tax incentives for businesses to reverse the rising unemployment rate. The president, who is in Beijing as part of his tour through several Asian countries to address economic challenges, spoke candidly about the precarious balancing act his administration is trying to perform. He wants to spend money to kick-start the economy, but at the same time is in danger of creating too much red ink.

The total combined national debt has just officially hit $12. In the 300+ days that Obama has been our president, Obama and Pelosi have accumulated more than $1.4 trillion dollars of debt, an astounding rate of increase of nearly $4.7 billion a day. Congratulations federal government, you're the best! Our children and grandchildren will really appreciate it.

Our kids are the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all pre-approved! By Mark Steyn Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged, and the early middle-aged: Isn’t it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn’t offered to pick up the tab. Well, okay, they didn’t exactly “offer” but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And “Yes, we can!”...

While the CBO was busily figuring out the cost of the Pelosi version of Obamacare the democrats were busily adding to the bill. Sources are reporting that the cost of the bill has gone up by approximately $200 billion dollars. The new provisions were meant to hold down insurance costs and to make it easier for the public to access the new programs. Think about this for a second, if the government was able to increase the cost of Obamacare before it even comes to a vote, just imagine what they will do to it once it is passed.

America's economy faces a miserable future, according to an important government report. The media collectively have yawned, and official Washington has barely blinked. The Government Accountability Office recently issued its report to the Congress on the long-term fiscal outlook for the United States. It is a bleak picture. The report opens: "Weakness in the economy and financial markets -- and the government's response to them -- have contributed to near-term increases in federal deficits, which reached record level in fiscal year 2009. While a lot of attention has been given to the recent fiscal deterioration, the federal government faces even...

One trillion, four hundred twenty billion dollars. It’s an astounding number. It’s more than the entire economy of India and enough to give every man, woman, and child in the United States $4700. It is also our country’s federal budget deficit for 2009. That means that in the fiscal year 2009, which runs from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009, the federal government spent $1.42 trillion more than it took in. To put this in perspective, last year’s deficit was $459 billion – still an astounding number, but less than half the deficit for this year. When our nation...

Most American’s were ready for Obama to go before his term started. Now after nine month’s in office, the first affirmative action POTUS declares that he is ‘ready to go’. I don’t know where he’s planning to go, but I suspect that it’s not anywhere that the rest of America would care to venture. Let’s review Obama’s performance as CEO of the United States.According to the Associated Press, the Federal Budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion as tax revenues plunged while the Obama Administration was spending massive amounts on the way to its undeclared destination....

Hurry While Supplies Last!!!

I sat here this morning and watched my share of the national debt go up so fast that I really can't tell you how much it went up as I wrote this. And this doesn't even add in "unfunded mandates". We all sit and argue over how we will pay for this program or that program; and all of it is VERY important and needs to be discussed. My simple question is this: Today we are over 11 TRILLION dollars in debt. In 10 years we will be almost 20 TRILLION dollars in debt. Forget paying for any new programs....

September 14, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Beyond EconomicsOur massive national debt is more than a financial threat. By Kevin Williamson One hopes Ben Bernanke and the Fed gang are reading the Drudge Report, where the top news items one day last week were: Enlarged U.S. deficits allow Switzerland to displace the United States as the world’s most competitive economy; Obama asks the Senate to raise the debt ceiling beyond its current $12.1 trillion level; the United Nations continues its push for a “global currency� to displace the U.S. dollar as the world’s go-to reserve; and — this will be no...

Whats one more trillion dollars between friends. At least it seems that's what the POTUS thinks. While everybody has their eyes on the Health Care Issue which will add up to one trillion dollars to the national debt, the President has been maneuvering to have the government to to take over the student loan business. Starting next year the President wants to bar private lenders to make government backed, student loans. This take over will add another trillion dollars to the debt over a ten year period.

Since hitting their lows back in March, financial markets have rallied in the wake of last year's financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is up 43 percent since March 9. But can it last? It could be all given up with this rate of government spending according to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer. Cramer, responding to a viewer e-mail on his Sept.8 program, explained what a higher national debt would mean to the average citizen and investors in the near and long term. He said expect the market to go down and higher taxes eventually. ...more (w/video)...

Former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker has been sounding the warnings of impending Federal bankruptcy for years. The largest problem is Federal health care entitlements — a factor to be seriously considered as Congress debates yet another proposed health care entitlement bill. [Videos]

While the deficits caused by the fiscal stimulus package will end in 2011 and will help to sustain a fragile recovery in 2010, the deficits projected for the longer term are a threat to our economic future. The starting point for controlling those future deficits is for Congress to abandon the administration's health-care plan—a plan that will cost more than $1 trillion. The deficits projected for the next decade and beyond are unprecedented. According to an assessment released in March by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the president's budget implies that deficits will average 5.2% of GDP over the next...

I have always wanted to do this so I figured I would put together a little project. Since 1980, the national debt has for the most part risen under a Democrat controlled Congress and fallen under a Republican controlled Congress. I have heard the argument from the libs about Reagan and Bush hiking the national debt and Clinton reducing the debt, but who is in control over making the budgets: Congress: Year Congress President Senate (100) House (435) 2009 111th D D - 55*** D - 256 2007 110th R D - 51** D - 233 2005 109th R R...

A future of poverty and upheaval And so those very same silly sods, who claim to be professionals in the financial world, who never saw this thing, the current economic crisis, approaching, are now the ones who loudly proclaim that the worst is behind us and though the recovery will be difficult, an upswing has now at least begun. There were, of course, a few sane voices out in the wilderness, often ridiculed or simply ignored by CNBC, who warned of an impending implosion. It is these voices we as a people should be paying more attention to, rather than...

We’re about to reach a new milestone on the road to ruin: the national debt will soon pass the $12 trillion mark. If you REALLY want to get exercised over this issue, I highly recommend that you periodically visit the U.S. Debt Clock Online. It’s like riding in an insane taxi with dozens of meters running.

The Obama administration is bracing for a political backlash on Tuesday when it issues national debt numbers showing federal debt rising by $9,000bn over the next decade – significantly higher than the forecast it made earlier this year. The revision, which will add $2,000bn (€1,400bn, £1,200bn) to the White House’s initial projection made in February, comes amid growing public jitters about the scale of US nat­ional debt, with one recent opinion poll showing Americans giving higher priority to reducing deficits than to reviving the economy.

"Obama’s Spending Plans Will Nearly Double the National Debt--White House Leaked the News Late on Friday" Monday, August 24, 2009 SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) - In news leaked late Friday to the Reuters news agency, the White House conceded that the national debt will increase by $9 trillion over the next ten years, nearly doubling a national debt that now stands at $11.67 trillion." SNIPPET: "The good news that the White House leaked to Reuters late on Friday is that it is now projecting that this year’s deficit will be $1.58 trillion, down from the $1.84 trillion it earlier estimated. At $1.58...

Hope and Change is really a New Era of Irresponsibility WASHINGTON (Reuters) The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday. The higher deficit figure, based on updated economic data, brings the White House budget office into line with outside estimates and gives further fuel to President Barack Obama's opponents, who say his spending plans are too expensive in light of budget shortfalls. The White House took heat for sticking with its $7.108 trillion forecast earlier this year after...

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Government is too big and it spends too much. I know, I know. We’ve been hearing this same old refrain all of our lives. But since the Democrats seized control of the nation’s purse strings in 2007, and with Liberals now in control of both the Congress and the White House, the people we’ve chosen to govern our Republic have turned up the flames fueling this smoldering cauldron of debt even beyond maximum. And now, on Friday August 21, the Obama White House announced that over the next ten years America will spend...

The White House cited an underestimate of the strength of our economy during last fall and winter as the primary flaw in their original projections. Yet, at the time of the original release, economic data was already available from that period of time. In addition, there is no defining legislative or social event that would have occurred during that period that would account for a an additional $2 trillion of US debt. The original deficit projections included both releases of TARP funds and the administrations stimulus package. At this time it appears that President Obama's original projections were full of...

What's really behind the push in the healthcare bill to limit, by government decree, healthcare options? It's because of the government's medicare Ponzi scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like just a simple short-game grifter. As Gary North points out, Medicare's hospital fund is already bankrupt: This is taken from a March 25, 2008 press release from the U.S. government's Department of Health and Human Services. This year the HI Trust Fund will spend more than its income, and from 2009 through 2017, about $342 billion will need to be transferred from the Federal treasury to cover beneficiaries' hospital insurance...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York bought $7.248 billion in Treasurys on Wednesday, the first of two operations this week. Dealers submitted $17.913 billion in debt maturing between 2013 and 2016 to the Fed. The central bank is more than two-thirds of the way through the $300 billion in U.S. debt it promised in March to buy in an effort to keep borrowing costs, particularly for companies and homebuyers, affordable. When the Fed bought from this maturity range a month ago, it purchased $7 billion. Treasury prices remained higher, pushing yields on the 10-year note down 3 basis points...

As President Clinton’s campaign mouthpiece James Carville put it so succinctly in the 1990s, “It’s the economy, stupid!” It was true then, it is true now. People may be temporarily seduced by intriguing figures and rosy promises but, bottom line, they still have to support their families and pay their bills. When the novelty of this or that politician has worn off and his or her pie-in-the-sky promises prove just so many hollow words, reality sets in. I am no economy expert, except for seeing every day that Americans are both depressed and terrified about their rapidly devolving savings and...

As is often the case on Monday nights, I am getting these daily news diggs to you late. Nonetheless, there are some serious headlines that ought to grab your attention. http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/

If you visit the Debt Clock at http://www.usdebtclock.org/ and watch the many dials as they update at dizzing speed, ask yourself which of the ticking counters represents the most critical reading? An airplane for example, has many gauges, some representing airspeed, others altitude and direction of flight, etc. But despite the fact that they all monitor critical systems there is usually one among them that the pilot in a given situation worries about the most. In the case of the US economy, which is the one to watch? Is it the total national debt, the estimated credit and currency derivatives,...