If the US were a person seeking credit from a bank: Excellent video provides great visualization of

Just came across this, thought I'd share. A great video, it uses a simple metaphor - What if the US was an indebted individual seeking credit from a local bank, instead of a nation? The proportion of debt to income, as well as other figures, are in the same proportions for this poor debtor as the numbers for the US as a whole, but its presented with "human scale" numbers, for better visualization.

The metaphor isn't perfect: after all, individuals can't print money, declare war, roll over debt, etc. the way nations can. Still, its a clever and effective way of seeing how bad the problem really is, and exactly what it means each time the US "increases the debt limit."

Star and Flag !

Great find, I will be showing this video to all of my friends.

This video puts the Nation’s debt condition in a real understandable form.

reply to post by Never Despise


Oh I don't know.. if USA has a debt of 100% of GDP .. I have personal debt of .. let's see.. 315% of my "gdp" And I have what is considered "low debt" .. hmm ..

this is a great video!
i love how he just puts his debt to the next generation...
kids are so cute!

Nice...The sad thing is that this is really how a lot of people live their lives, always in the red with debt, and they keep spending, not saving anything for tomorrow.

I was just looking at some figures on National Debt and GDP for America and the UK and found some interesting things that I thought I would share.

For those that don't know....

"GDP" (Gross Domestic Product), it's basically how much a country makes, it's like a persons wage or how much they earn, it excludes debt or expenditure.

When looking at the health of a countries economy, people like to compare how much debt they have as a percentage against how much they earn at the end of the year, so debt against GDP in other words

If a country earns £20/$20 and they have debts of £10/$10 their 50% debt against GDP, if a country earns $20 and their debt is $20 they have 100% debt against GDP.... America is currently at 101% give or take and the UK is at 60%

So what is the current debt of America... National Debt is around $15.23 Trillion and the UK is around £1.53 Trillion, fairly even when size etc is taken into account, I think.

What does Americas debt look like - $15,225,738,000,000.00... What is $15 Trillion? Think of $10 million ($10,000,000).... It's 10 one millions, think of $100 million ($100,000,000)... It's 100 one millions. $15 Trillion is 15,000,000 one millions or (to confuse things) it's 15 million... one millions. It's like having 15 million rich people spending a million dollars ($1,000,000).

Each American would have to pay $48,500 each to pay off the debt, but worse is that every Taxpayer would have to pay $135,000 (so every working person pays $135k).... But wait, that's just National debt the government owes, add the personal debt and business debt... and the total American debt is £56 Trillion (every Family owes $683,420). If every person on the planet (including children, I've assumed 7 billion, is that right?) paid $1,666 into a bank account, this would pay of American debt or $56 Trillion.

Anyway, the reason for posting is because I was looking at debt in history and if we've been in this situation before.

In the UK, the Debt to GDP is 60%, has this happened before? Is this a disaster like being portrayed?

In the 320 years of having a financial system, I've calculated 215 years have been above debt to GDP of 60%??? And only 105 years have been below 60%, in other words the UK has spent most of it's history in much worse debt..215 years out of 320 years have been worse than now in terms of debt.

In the US, the Debt to GDP is 101%, looking back in history, how does this stack up?

In the 220 years of having a financial system, I've calculated only 3 years have been higher in terms of debt

What I don't understand is why the UK is panicking when 60% debt to GDP is good considering past percentages, am I missing something? The UK has been at 260% debt to GDP before!

America on the other hand is in new territory and I can see why the concern.

reply to post by II HAL II

What I don't understand is why the UK is panicking when 60% debt to GDP is good considering past percentages, am I missing something? The UK has been at 260% debt to GDP before!

Currency control.. the UK is one of the very few countries that benefits from a stronger currency, much like the USA did from the 80s-90s. With rising debt to GDP the UK Gov can monetize the debt even as tax receipts drop, but depreciate the currency which will have adverse effects on the UK economy, as well as make the average UK citizen feel "poorer" as their money buys less .. which would lead to a contraction in consumption, prompting deflation of the economy's GDP.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Nice answer...

I'm not going to pretend I understood all of that but I get the currency link having an effect.