Keep this Wiki page alive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_total_cumulative_debt_per_person

[billstew]

Keep this Wiki page alive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_tota...ebt_per_person

To view US debt from the point of total governmental debt per person is potentially misleading from the GAAP accounting rules. US corporate and personal debt have to be considered as part of the US debt picture. There are some suggestions that the total cumulative debt (the sum of all governmental debt + corporate debt + personal debt) in the US may be 700,000 USD per person or about 2.17 Million per household (of 2.28 people)

• Spreadsheet with total debt calculations, experimental
• This debt number is not often used in US monetary policy discussions, so it is hard to find common agreement on how it should be computed.
• The total debt per person in other nations is also equally not known due to the obscurity of the calculation.

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that make this debt computation necessary

• Principle of consistency: The consistency principle requires accountants to apply the same methods and procedures from period to period. This debt number is best understood when tracked over longer timeframes.
• Principle of sincerity: According to this principle, the accounting unit should reflect in good faith the reality of the nation's financial status.
• Principle of Full Disclosure/Materiality: All information and values pertaining to the financial position of a nation must be disclosed in its records. Nation states are not immune from this kind of disclosure.

See also

• Balance of payments
• Budget deficit
• Deficit
• Inflation
• Economy of the United States - discusses U.S. national debt and economic context
• Fiat currency
• Fractional-reserve banking
• FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
• Global debt - the "big picture"
• Gold as an investment
• History of the U.S. public debt - a table containing historical debt data
• List of countries by current account balance
• List of public debt - list of the public debt for many nations, as a percentage of the GDP
• National debt by U.S. presidential terms
• Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system (2008)
• Public debt - a general discussion of the topic
• United States federal budget - analysis of federal budget spending and long-term risks
• Securities

[Rajiv]

Re: Keep this Wiki page alive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_total_cumulative_debt_per_person

You may want to take the help of some economic grad students on this -- perhaps an e-mail to some econ profs may help? Emmanuel Saez at Berkeley perhaps (he openly shares his data) ( a Labour/Marxist economist could be useful) Rick (Richard D) Wolff at UMass maybe?

[billstew]

My Uni and my ISP ended newsgroups, so your idea not quite so viable...

My Uni and my ISP ended newsgroups, so your idea not quite so viable...

I am simply amazed that more people don't care about total cumulative debt, but in the US it seems to be a concept lost on most people.

Maybe my exposure to less complex finance systems in

• Australia
• Canada
• NZ & Fiji
• Malta (have not visited, but would love to see it)

has spoiled me on the idea of knowing every cent of equity and debt that a nation has.

Obviously, I do care about government debt and deficits -- but the nature of many modern debt fueled economies is that entities besides the government can accumulate vast debts.

Nations that have some equity in their economies (like classical trading nations) are less immune to finance meltdown problems than economies totally run on debt. Classical trading nations post-1945 don't typically have global reserve currencies, but having or not having a reserve currency is not the thing that makes or breaks a classical trading nation.

A relative of mine says that I have cost the US government (at all levels) some 3.2 Million USD, but my computations only come to around 1.25 Million USD. My highest plausible GAAP number found was 2.11 Millions, as usual accounting for indirect costs and lifetime costs is the fly in the ointment.

Ironically it is illegal for me to work in the US due to country of origin issues coupled with parents being US nationals.

I find the intersection between "being that costly" and "not being permitted to work so that I might pay taxes" a sign of a beyond totally failed state, but not the honorable kind like Afghanistan.

The US has succeeded in running itself totally on debt (and total systemic corruption). The obvious penalty will probably be an economic implosion. Sadly, this will ruin the economies of many classical trading nations that are tied to the US finance system, directly or indirectly. In this case Australia, Canada and NZ will be very sickly while the US economy is in its deathbed.