What's a few trillion dollars between friends?...A lot of zeros!

How many zeros are in a Trillion? I asked all of my smart friends (2 of them), neither knew but each ventured a guess. The first one said 9 zeros and the second said twenty. I had no idea, so I turned to the all knowing Google and found out that they were both wrong. The correct answer is 12. So one trillion dollars would look like this: $1,000,000,000,000.  Currently, the United States Government owes 18 Trillion Dollars which is $18,000,000,000,000 and growing by the second.

This equates to every person in the USA owing over $41,000 and based on the way the Government keeps spending and borrowing at break neck speed it will NEVER be paid off. Just for fun, here's a great link showing what is going on: Debt Clock

For comparison let’s look at some other countries debt in U.S. dollars, rounded for easy reading:

• China: $5,300,000,000,000
• Russia: $246,000,000,000
• France: $2,300,000,000,000
• Germany: 2,200,000,000,000
• Italy: $2,500,000,000,000
• Greece: $424,000,000,000

So, in a nutshell, China, Russia, France, Germany,Italy and Greece COMBINED owe just about HALF of what the U.S.A. owes. Anyone see an issue here? Every time the national debt ceiling is reached, Congress plays this game of “the government is going to shut down” and then at the last minute they extend the debt ceiling and increase whatever pork they want for their districts.

Can a company listed on the NYSE get away with this? Can they simply sell a never ending amount of debt and recklessly spend without failure? Of course not. So why do we do we let the government act in this way? Why is there a “debt ceiling” if every time we reach it, we simply extend it? and NO ONE is held accountable? The most astonishing part is that not only is everyone lining up to buy our debt, the government has actually issued debt at ZERO percent interest! who in their right minds would lend money at ZERO percent? Quick answer other countries where you are charged to keep a balance, so better to make ZERO then to pay for the privilege of having your money in a bank.

Does every banker in the world have their head in the sand thinking that everything is ok as long as they don’t look up? The markets have been held up through endless quantitative easing which has now become a global trend, along with access to cheap money. (Who has access to this cheap money is a story for another time). At some point the actual economy, real employment and actual productivity are going to have to come around otherwise this looks like one big Ponzi scheme to me.