The US national debt has just topped a record $40 trillion, and folks, I almost spilled my coffee reading this one. It’s a grim milestone in the history of the nation’s fiscal health, and America’s debt burden is rising faster than estimates just a few years ago, exacerbated by persistent deficits and soaring interest payments. The current debt is roughly double its value just 10 years ago, and it’s adding nearly $7 billion each day, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group. That’s a whole lotta cash, if I do say so myself.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – how big is $40 trillion, really? Well, let me put it this way: it’s 1 billion, 40,000 times over. Or 1 million, 40 million times over. If the United States were to pay down $1 billion of debt each day, it would take nearly 110 years to pay it all off. At $1 million per day, it would take nearly 110,000 years. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
The US population is roughly 343 million people, according to Census Bureau data. That means the total national debt of $40 trillion comes out to about $117,000 per American. Bless their hearts, that’s a lot of debt for each person to bear. The current debt is roughly double its value just 10 years ago. In August 2016, the total national debt was just below $20 trillion. In the past decade, the debt has doubled to $40 trillion.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told CNN that “unsustainable borrowing on this scale has huge repercussions throughout the economy, straining efforts to address affordability and risking a dangerous debt spiral if lawmakers don’t act.” I couldn’t agree more, Maya. It’s time for our lawmakers to get their act together and figure out a way to tackle this debt.
Now, let’s put this debt into perspective. The 10 richest people in the world have a combined net worth of $2.7 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The national debt is worth almost 15 times that. And if you keep adding the rest of the world’s richest people, you don’t get much closer. The total net worth of all 500 richest people on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index comes out to almost $13 trillion. That’s still $27 trillion less than the national debt.
Across all of history, roughly 220,700 tonnes of gold have been mined, according to the World Gold Council. At gold’s current spot price of roughly $4,600 a troy ounce, the total value of all gold ever mined comes out to roughly $33 trillion — still $7 trillion less than the national debt. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, has a market cap of more than $5.2 trillion. It would take more than seven Nvidias to match the size of the federal debt.
The federal debt is larger than the entire value of the goods and services produced in the US economy. The US economy, as measured by gross domestic product, was valued at over $32 trillion in the second quarter of this year, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Comparing the debt to GDP can help make comparisons between different nations. The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is at roughly 123%, near a record high. It first surpassed 100% in 2012.
Take the five largest economies after the United States. The US national debt is larger than all of them combined. China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and India have GDPs roughly valued at a combined $37 trillion, according to World Bank data. That’s about $3 trillion less than the total US debt burden. Total US household debt, including mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, and student loans, was almost $19 trillion in the second quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s about half the US government’s total debt burden.
The total value of retirement assets in the United States was $47.6 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the Investment Company Institute. The national debt, at $40 trillion, is equivalent to almost 85% of all retirement assets in the United States. So, to sum it all up, the US national debt is a big deal, folks. It’s a lot of money, and it’s only getting bigger. Let’s hope our lawmakers can figure out a way to tackle it before it’s too late. And on that note, I’m going to go refill my coffee cup, because this debt talk is exhausting.
Armchair patriot. Believes in the free market, cold beer, and that there’s always a guy named George behind every CNN segment.
Former remote-throwing champion turned #1 couch commentator on liberal panic in the media. Born in Texas (or so his mug says), he earned a degree in Fake Newsology & Beer Philosophy from YouTube University.
