expat_panama
Gold Member
- Apr 12, 2011
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The reason the $53T total US debt is greater than the $9.7 federal debt is because that total is the sum of the federal + household + business + foreign debt. Total household debt at $13.3 appears bigger than the $9.6T federal debt only because it includes $4.1T that households owe themselves, and the feddebt number does not include $4.6T that the federals owe the federals. Here's the latest from the Treasury Dept.'s "Debt to the Penny' site:...the $53T in debt is not a completely accurate figure. That said, would you still agree that the total amount of private debt (household and business) far exceeds that of Washington's?
![debtpeny.png](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fungb.org%2Fecon%2Fdebtpeny.png&hash=0b8a4132c60dafb1d63b3694bb508ca2)
Most importantly, private debt is disappearing while federal debt is exploding. The original numbers in post # 24 show that since 2008 private debt's fallen $800B while federal debt's skyrocketed $3,200B.