Robert J. Samuelson (my favorite economist and economic editorial writer) had an interesting and informative editorial commentary on February 25, 2013 about the US Debt and the complexity in counting it up. He notes that there are 5 different figures that a reasonable person could use in establishing the level of the US\u00a0debt depending on what was included. The five are as follows:<\/p>\n
Category\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Amount FY2012\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 % of GDP<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0Treasury Debt Held by the Public \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 $11.3 Trillion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a073%<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 Gross Treasury Debt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0$16.0 Trillion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 103%<\/p>\n
3. \u00a0Gross Treasury Debt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0$18.9 Trillion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 122%<\/p>\n
plus federal loans or guarantees to others<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 Category 3 plus Housing Debt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 $24.0 Trillion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 155%<\/p>\n
5.\u00a0 Category 4 plus FDIC\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0$31.3 Trillion\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 202%<\/p>\n
Not counted are the Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and other liabilities which are not debts but future liabilities that are subject to change by the acts of Congress. \u00a0In an accounting sense, the management of the Federal Government (the President and his Chief Financial Officer)\u00a0 may choose to book these on their financial statements or only in the footnotes to those financial statements. The\u00a0audit opinion on the US Federal Government given by their outside auditors will depend on their choice in this matter.<\/p>\n
Remember Reinhart and Rogoff and their economic analysis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When debt exceeds 90% of GDP, growth is slowed.\u00a0 Clearly on 4 of the 5 measures of debt, we exceed this slow growth cutoff.\u00a0 Perhaps this, in part, explains our slow expansion since our major recession in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robert J. Samuelson (my favorite economist and economic editorial writer) had an interesting and informative editorial commentary on February 25, 2013 about the US Debt and the complexity in counting it up. He notes that there are 5 different figures that a reasonable person could use in establishing the level of the US\u00a0debt depending on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}