U.S. Debt

Just a little more on debt, as promised.

**All figures in A.D. 2000 dollars.


Our public debt, courtesy of the U.S. Treasury:

Jan. 22, 1993 - $5.14 TRILLION (4.18 TRILLION in 1993 dollars)
Jan. 22, 2001 - $5.73 TRILLION
Jan. 21, 2009 - $8.71 TRILLION (10.63 TRILLION in 2008 dollars)

Our Gross National Product, courtesy of the Bureau for Economic Analysis:

1992 - $7.34 TRILLION
2000 - $9.89 TRILLION (34% growth since 1992)
2008 - $11.70 TRILLION (18% growth since 2000)

Please note: the figures from Quarter IV of 2008 are not yet in. I arrived at a total for 2008 by averaging the first three quarters and adding that "average quarter" to the total. It is very likely that the resulting GDP figure for 2008 is too high, since Q IV is widely expected to show a sharp decline.

Public Debt as a percentage of GDP:

1993 - 70.0%
2001 - 57.9%
2009 - 74.4%

... And this only covers public debt. I shudder to think about what private debt numbers are going to look like.