The Debtors' Merry-Go-Round

[Parsad]

Recent, excellent interactive chart from the Economist on developed country debt.  Cheers!

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-10

[giofranchi]

Y-Charts calculates US Total Debt vs. GDP at 349.8% (last reading 09/30/2012):

 

http://ycharts.com/indicators/us_total_debt_gdp

 

The Economist puts it at 289%.

 

Does someone know what the exact percentage is?

Thank you,

 

giofranchi

[Phaceliacapital]

 

Does someone know what the exact percentage is?

 

What do you think :)??

[rmitz]

Y-Charts calculates US Total Debt vs. GDP at 349.8% (last reading 09/30/2012):

 

http://ycharts.com/indicators/us_total_debt_gdp

 

The Economist puts it at 289%.

 

Does someone know what the exact percentage is?

Thank you,

 

giofranchi

 

There really isn't an exact percentage, since those rely on future projections of usage for medicare, medicaid, and social security, along with the entire rest of the budget.  GDP itself is kind of fuzzy as well.  The current debt is the only thing you can get close to "exact".  You can look up the debt here: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

 

The last date they have is for 1/17, with values of 11,573,578,115,566.81 for public debt, 4,859,053,374,287.89 for intergovernmental holdings (like SS holding treasuries), and totaling to: 16,432,631,489,854.70.  (I believe this number might be accurate due to the debt ceiling--I think right now they're at max borrow and are moving things around to pay bills.)  Current GDP is around 15 trillion.  So the real actual debt outstanding is somewhat over GDP, but a large chunk of that is really owed internally, so it's not really clear you should count that.  I also think it's silly to get detailed in future debt to GDP projections, because what cannot happen, will not happen.  Something will change.

 

There is still plenty of time to come to grips with these problems, but it isn't going to be easy with the environment in Washington.