3 thoughts on “Visualizing the debt ceiling”

  1. The article you are linking to states:

    “The United States hit its legal borrowing limit on Monday, and the Treasury Department has said the U.S. Congress must raise the debt ceiling by August 2 to avoid a default.”

    There are other options, one that comes to mind, is to pay all interest payments, and roll over any T-bills coming due, scale all other payments (salaries, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, military payments, discretionary spending) such that receipts equal outlays. How is this defaulting, and why is this option not on the table?

    Is it never mentioned in the press because journalists don’t have brains, or is it a political agenda to ignore this option?

    I do realize this might also be called a default, as some entitlements would not be paid in full, but if so, it is still dishonest to lump this with not paying bond holders (which is much more serious) under the common label “default”.

  3. “In $1 bills, the [national debt] pile would reach to the moon and back twice.”
    Our borrowing though is a paltry $2,800,900 each minute.

    Now read this in Mayor Quimby’s voice:

    What John F. Kennedy spent in 10 years to land a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth, we can now borrow in 3 weeks. We choose to spend this money not because it is hard, but because it is easy. Now on to the next item, the proposal for putting term limits on public office. All those in favor say “I have sex with animals.

    Wiki: “The final cost of project Apollo was reported to Congress as $25.4 billion in 1973.” At a 3% inflation rate annually that comes to $78.1 billion 2011 dollars.

    FTA: “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the United States borrows about $125 billion per month.”

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