Rolfe Winkler
Option ARMageddon
$13 trillion….
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Don’t look now, but total U.S. public debt outstanding is approaching $13 trillion.
Each incremental trillion is going by so quickly, it’s hardly news anymore…
$6 trillion: February 28, 2002
$7 trillion: January 15, 2004 (22.5 months)
$8 trillion: October 20, 2005 (21 months)
$9 trillion: August 31, 2007 (22 months)
$10 trillion: September 30, 2008 (13 months)
$11 trillion: March 16, 2009 (5.5 months)
$12 trillion: November 16, 2009 (8 months)
$13 trillion: May-June 2010 (6-7 months)
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For me, looking back to the last few years gives a different perspective on “too big to fail”. The solution seems to be to pass the buck (or rather the promise to pay back the buck) up to the next higher level. Once the gov’t is reached there is no higher level and failure, as Rick Wagoner so memorably said, “is not an option”. We all know there is no gold or anything else that supports this hat trick. It all comes down to trust. You say what a dollar is worth and, if I agree, then that’s what it’s worth. But we are all simply holding pieces of paper with famous faces on them. Right now, if we all can only wish wish wish hard enough that there is real value then perhaps there is daylight at the end of the tunnel…until next time.
Found in a paper recycling bin the other day – Surviving the Great Depression of 1990 by one Dr. Ravi Batra. I wonder if he has a new printing for the latest depression.