What Does $15 Trillion Look Like?

Visualize U.S. debt here.

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The Tragic Absurdity of In Debt We Trust:

Bill Stills, creator of the film, The Money Masters, which tries to answser the question, "why are Americans going broke and the American middle class rapidly disappearing, by going back and tracing the history of modern banking which began over 300 years ago (with the founding of the privately-owned Bank of England).

In his new film "The Secrets of Oz", Stills elucidates the powerful symbols of monetary reform which were the core of the Populist movement and the 1896 and 1900 presidental bids of Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan in L. Frank Baum's, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Through fascinating metaphors, historical allusions, solutions are revealed.

The Secrets of Oz

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The United States of American Debt

The national debt in the U.S. climbed to $7.17 trillion in November and the U.S.’s debt burden will climb to 97.5 % of GDP next year from 87.4 %, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

According to Moody's Wall Street ratings analytics, the U.K. and the U.S. have “resilient” Aaa ratings, as opposed to the “resistant” top ratings of Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, and New Zealand.

What does that mean?

Well, Moody's defines "resilient" as “Aaa countries whose public finances are deteriorating considerably and may therefore test the Aaa boundaries, but which display, in our opinion, an adequate reaction capacity to rise to the challenging and rebound,” whereas, "resistant" are countries who "started from a more robust position and won’t see debt exceeding levels consistent with their Aaa status."

How big is the debt limit, you ask? Well, it should be $14 trillion after the chamber votes to increase it a fourth time in 18 months by $1.8 trillion or $1.9 trillion, more than twice the size of each of the past three debt limit increases.

However, not to worry as Moody's sees no threat to U.S. top rating for now.

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Fiscal Wake-Up Tour

The national debt is expanding by about $1.4 billion a day or nearly $1 million a minute and currently stands at over $9.3 trillion. Interest payments, at $227 billion last year have already become the fifth largest item in the federal budget. The Bush administration will leave office with the national debt at over $10 trillion, up from $5.6 trillion when they took office.

The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a group of traveling economists, on the road since 2005, are sounding the alarm, hoping to shed light on the long-term federal budget and the fiscal problems we face in the future if we continue on the same path. Their goal is to inspire regular Americans to start thinking about our fiscal future hoping they will ask politicians to come up with a solution.

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