Yes, that is every family's share of the debt - if split evenly. Thus ruining for all time the idea that the repub party is the party of fiscal responsibility. Raise taxes - cut spending - somehow I think even if we do both we are still gonna be ankle deep in elephant sh*t for a long time.

Sunday, October 12, 2008; 3:45 PM

Debt clock draws confused looks, anger or nothing

NEW YORK -- A watched clock never moves _ unless it's the National Debt Clock.

In fact, the digital counter has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon.

The clock was put up by the late real estate mogul Seymour Durst in 1989 when the U.S. government's debt was a mere $2.7 trillion, and was even turned off during the 1990s when the debt decreased.

It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock, said Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the Durst Organization. The new clock will be able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros.

In the meantime, the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.'

The current clock had enough digits to measure the amount of money owed by the U.S. government until debt recently hit $10 trillion. Since then, more eyes have been on the fixture near touristy Times Square.

When Nancy Gurzo spotted the sign one recent afternoon, she came to a halt. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, Gurzo pointed up at the sign, gesturing for her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren, all of whom had left her behind, to walk back and see.
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"It's a shame," the 60-year-old Manasquan, N.J., restaurant manager said, anger and disbelief in her face. "It's an absolute outrage. It may be the end of the United States as we know it today. We haven't seen the worst of it. Everybody should stop and look at this clock. It affects all of us. I'm worried."

That afternoon, others glanced at the clock, some of their faces wrinkling with confusion. But most pedestrians seemed not to even notice the clock, which is tucked several stories high on the side of a brick parking garage-office building. The counter, on West 44th Street near Sixth Avenue, is more visible to those walking west; for those walking east, the sign is already behind them once they walk by the building.

On a shaded block of Broadway theaters, restaurants, and high-end retailers, the clock isn't the most striking sight. Below the clock is a midtown office for the Internal Revenue Service, and at the nearby intersection stands an Ameritrade investment office and a Chase bank branch.

Svet Stauber paused in front of the sign and held his camera up to snap a picture.

"It's symbolic," Stauber, a 40-year-old pilot from Switzerland, said of the counter's lack of space. "It's a very big symbol. It's a complete failure of the system. It's the most powerful country in the world with a conservative government for the last eight years, and it's running the biggest debt ever."

The reaction of Stauber's wife, Roberta, to the escalating debt was more pointed: "It's good for the United States," the doctor said, adding that maybe the country's current predicament would deflate its "ego" and "arrogance."

"You think you are the best country in the world," she continued. "I hope America reflects about this."

Kary Perez, an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University, said, "I think it's sad how bad we've fallen as a nation," as she watched the clock, which features images of $1 bills in the background.

Below the amount of the national debt on the clock is another row of figures: "YOUR Family share." As of Saturday afternoon, the $86,023 fit properly into the respective LCD squares.

Debt clock draws confused looks, anger or nothing - washingtonpost.com

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

Growing debt has been going on for a long time before this administration. It is the fault of the overspending democrats and the overspending republicans.

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May your paradise always be green, you liberties always be full, and may the ignorance of you enemies not drive you to be pro-nuke.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle."-Winston Churchill

Too true - but the repubs had control of everything for six years - and the debt doubled. It was below 5 trillion when Bush and his party took control - and contrary to their pledge, they neither reduced spending, nor reduced govt. Instead they went on a spending spree, while growing govt, cutting taxes and conducting wars that they never put in the budget.

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

That isn't my debt and I'm not paying it!

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

I will not attempt to pass myself off as an expert in all matters economic; and even those whose backgrounds in this "dismal science" would suggest a rather high level of expertise often disagree with each other on many important, fundamental matters.

However, I do feel safe in disputing the tacit assumption that a hike in tax rates will inevitably produce more revenue for the government. That requires so-called "static" assumptions, rather than the "dynamic scoring" that takes into account real human behavior, in response to higher tax rates.

By way of a rough analogy, two aspirins may be better for a headache than just one; but it does not stand to reason that a whole handful of aspirins would be better, still.

Likewise, if the top tax bracket were lowered dramatically to, say, five percent, it would indeed lead to substantially decreased revenues to the government. But if it were increased to, say, 90 percent, that would also surely lead to diminished tax revenue.

Just where the "sweet spot" is, I am not smart enough to say. But I would imagine that if the top rate were increased to only 45 percent--I say "only," because that is just half of the 90 percent positied in the paragraph above--it would have a detrimental effect upon revenues to the government.

At the very least, this is an arguable point. So one ought not assume, without firm evidence, that an increase in revenues may be effected by a mere increase in tax rates.

Wow - where did that come from?

I really would not advise raising taxes now, but that does not mean the debt ceases to exist, or ceases to be a factor. In fact, it is one reason why credit is so tight - the govt has sucked up so much of it! That always happens with massive govt debt.

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

You wish ... so do I.

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

I am expediting my efforts to get off the grid.
Once that is complete....the fed.gov can go to he!!

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The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! - Frederick Bastiat

Easy: the wealthiest 300,000 people in the nation, that is, the top 0.1%, can each pay $340 million very easily and then we're fine.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

No we are not fine when we are propping them up with this bail out.

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The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! - Frederick Bastiat