Debt

            
             called National Debt (national debt is here defined as the sum of all recognized debt of .
             federal, state & local governments, international, private households, business and .
             domestic financial sectors, including federal debt to trust funds - but excludes the huge .
             un-funded contingent liabilities of social security, government pensions and medicare). .
             The National Debt Total is now over $27 Trillion, or $101,000 per man, woman and child. .
             To get you started since a picture is worth a thousand words', following is one of the .
             many pictures shown in the Full National Debt Report via its link at bottom this page. .
             This is A SCARY CHART - showing 4 decade trends of national debt (the red line, .
             reaching $25 trillion) vs growth of the economy a measured by national income (blue line), .
             adjusted for inflation in 1998 dollars. .
             National debt is here defined as all U.S. debt (sum debt of federal and state & local .
             governments, international, and private debt, incl. household, business and financial sector, .
             including federal debt to trust funds). .
             Note from 1957 to the early 1970s each curve approximately doubled - meaning about the .
             same ratio of debt was supporting national income growth, despite paying on old WW II .
             debt and covering Korean and Vietnam wars. e's a representative chart of the many shown .
             in the main National Debt Report, linked below. Look at that chart. Which line goes up .
             faster, the red debt line or the blue .
             Had the economy become less debt dependent after that we would have expected debt to .
             slow down. But, instead, it took off. .
             In just the 1990s real debt increased more than two times faster than growth of the total .
             economy - - despite zero cold wars. .
             Other charts show the driving culprits were not only federal government debt ratios .
             (which stopped falling in early 1970s soon after to reverse strongly to the upside - .
             growing twice as fast as the economy) - but, not to be left out, other main culprits were .