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 .