national debt

You've heard that the US has about $14.5 trillion in national debt, but this week Laurence Kotlikof, an economist and former Reagan advisor, said the US is really $211 TRILLION in debt.

Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded its outlook for Japan's credit rating because of concerns over its massive national debt.

Moody’s and S.& P. warned the United States that it might ruin its triple-A credit rating if the national debt kept increasing.

Greece's governing Socialists won a key budget vote in Parliament early Thursday, calling for deeper austerity measures in the crisis-hit country and promising to avoid default despite a soaring national debt.

The U.S. external debt was $13.45 trillion in June 2009 and President Obama’s latest budget proposal projects that number will reach $20 trillion for 2015.

By that point, the public’s share of that debt is expected to reach an alarming two-thirds of the GDP.

Let's add some perspective...

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The U.S. debt is the total amount of money the government has borrowed (from its people and foreigners) in order to pay for past government spending.

With congress set to raise the limit on the national debt, let's take a look at just how much money that is.

The national debt is so large, it doesn't even fit on most calculators. Western Colorado real estate developer Matt Miles says he was concerned that no one in government, nor most Americans, had ever seen the number.

So he made a new calculator.

In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion — more than the sum of all previous deficits since America's founding.

And it says by the next decade's end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt, which is a staggering $11.4 trillion - about $37,000 for every American.