My latest column at the Christian Science Monitor takes a crack at this perennial question. Short version: You ought to add about $4.6 trillion to whatever debt figure you are using. Why? Because the United States has about $7.3 trillion in non-debt liabilities (mostly pension and health benefits), offset by about 2.7 trillion in assets. These numbers aren’t perfect–for [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Debt’
How Much Does the United States Really Owe?
Posted in Budget, tagged Accounting, Budget, Debt on January 27, 2012 | 8 Comments »
Indebted Countries Come in Three Flavors
Posted in Budget, International, tagged Debt, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, United Kingdom on September 26, 2011 | 3 Comments »
The IMF’s latest Fiscal Monitor includes a colorful chart of who owns the debt of six countries with well-known debt concerns: The debt owned by foreign investors and foreign central banks are in red and yellow; the other colors represent debt owned domestically. Based on IMF’s accounting, the six countries come in three flavors: The “PIG” countries. Portugal, [...]
Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Debt, Deficit on September 22, 2011 | 1 Comment »
My latest column for the Christian Science Monitor argues that a slew of budget deadlines will drive policy action this Fall. Case in point, the potential for a government shutdown when the government’s fiscal year ends next week. I don’t think that’s likely, at least not yet, but such deadlines will be the big thing this [...]
The Latest Sovereign Debt Meme? Going Big
Posted in Budget, International, tagged Budget, Debt, Deficit, Europe on September 16, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The developed world is awash in sovereign debt. Greece stands on the precipice of painful (and inevitable) default. Italy and Spain struggle to convince markets that their debts are good. Portugal and Ireland hope to get in the lifeboat with Italy and Spain, rather than drown with Greece. And then there’s the United States. Much further from a sovereign crisis than many Euro nations, [...]
S&P’s $2 Trillion Error
Posted in Budget, Finance, Politics, tagged Budget, Debt, Deficit on August 7, 2011 | 22 Comments »
In the final hours before Friday’s historic downgrade, Standard & Poors gave Treasury an advance copy of its report. Amazingly, that report contained a $2 trillion error in its calculations of U.S. deficits and debt over the next decade. Here are four things you should know about it. 1. Treasury hoped that S&P would change its decision [...]
Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade
Posted in Budget, Finance, Politics, tagged Budget, Debt, Deficit, Interest Rates on August 5, 2011 | 11 Comments »
On Friday night, Standard and Poors announced that it was downgrading U.S. long-term sovereign debt from AAA to AA+, the first such downgrade in U.S. history. Here are five things you should know about the downgrade — four important, one trivia. 1. S&P downgraded U.S. debt not only because of the deteriorating fiscal outlook, but [...]
Spain’s 1575 Default
Posted in Budget, History, International, tagged Debt, Debt Limit, History, International, Spain on August 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
If all goes according to plan, the hoopla over the debt limit will soon recede. Policymakers and analysts will move on to the next new thing. And, sadly, some fascinating questions will forever go unanswered. For example, which president would appear on the trillion-dollar coin? But if you are up for one last article about default, yesterday’s piece by [...]
Debt Limit: Routine or the End of the World?
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Debt, Debt Limit, Humor, Politics on July 29, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Well, it certainly isn’t routine this time. Life was much simpler on the West Wing: This is a repost from May.
Most Requested
Twitter
Get Updates by Email
Get Updates by RSS
Share or Bookmark
-
Recent Posts
- Financial Answers Made Simple
- The 102% Tax Rate and Other Perils Measuring Tax Rates
- When Should You Stop Looking for a Possibly-Extinct Species?
- A Sunday Numeracy Quiz
- The U.S. Economy is Uncertain, Fragile, and … Growing
- Do Federal Workers Get Paid More Than Private Ones?
- Online Education and Self-Driving Cars
- How Much Does the United States Really Owe?
- Can One Professor Teach 500,000 Students At Once?
- Capital Gains Taxes Are Going Up
- The Natural Gas Glut is Reshaping Electricity Markets
- Oil and Natural Gas Prices Move Even Further Apart
- Getting Better But a Long Way to Go
- How Do Consumers Spend Engine Efficiency Advances? On Bigger, Faster Cars
- Lose an Election, Gain a Think Tank
30-Second Economics
Tags
Categories
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
Translate this blog into
