Spin, Spin, Spin, and more Spin! Certainly, I can't prove it. But I think the economies numbers have been more massaged and tweaked than the books at Enron. I can say with absolute certainty there are multi-billion dollar outsourcing firms that have replaced thousands if not millions of American Jobs.

conservatives won't beleive it until they have no way to pay their bills.......then they'll say WTF happened...it was those losers...the Democrats....that's what they'll say.

That's HUGE.

Nothing like numbers to show and defend what we've all known and/or suspected these past few years.

This needs big spin on Countdown, the blogs, and every genial corner of the MSM.

Seems to me that many of the pundits who talk about the economy aren't relying on middle-class wages to earn a living. There is a tremendous disconnect between the economic elite and the middle class. More to the point, how can so many people being robbed by the very wealthy continue to support the very ideas that keep them down? Is it really about the red herrings of illegal immigrants and welfare cheats?

mudshark @ 4:

conservatives won't beleive it until they have no way to pay their bills.......then they'll say WTF happened...it was those losers...the Democrats....that's what they'll say.

Trillions of investment dollars are not coming to the USA because of fear

The people are too stupid to know what is happening to them They deserve it. I have been unemployed for some time, I no longer care what happens to their dumb azzes.

Conservative @ 10:

mudshark @ 4:

conservatives won't beleive it until they have no way to pay their bills.......then they'll say WTF happened...it was those losers...the Democrats....that's what they'll say.

Trillions of investment dollars are not coming to the USA because of fear

Why and what are the foreign dollars being invested in in this country?

Is there anything for the Democrats to do to help w/ this economic turmoil? Unemployment?

With things costing so much, i don't know if Americans are willing to settle for higher taxes to fund universal health care.

But aren’t “they” YOU and vice versa? With an attitude like that it’ll never change . . . and we ALL pay for it.

I would like change, I know what pain is. Nobody cares. As long as they have a job, doing whatever, they don't care. They vote the same bums in year after year. Backstabbers, brown nosers, assholes every one of them. They only respond to pain when they feel it themselves. I don't care what happens to them. Whatever grievous ill is coming their way they have earned it in spades.

Benen, you give these bastards too much credit by continuing to refer to them as conservatives.

There are no conservatives left in our Republic and there are no Republicans left in America.

For that matter, there are no real cowboys left in Texas. They're all of the John Wayne variety -all hat, no cattle.

The Clint Eastwood cowboys lost in Texas, and now Texas (except the Austin oasis) is a big pile of horse$#!+.

I guess I'm straying off-topic a bit, but my point, Benen, is that these dip$#!+s aren't conservatives under any literal definition of the term.

edgar @ 18:

But aren’t “they” YOU and vice versa? With an attitude like that it’ll never change . . . and we ALL pay for it.

I would like change, I know what pain is. Nobody cares. As long as they have a job, doing whatever, they don't care. They vote the same bums in year after year. Backstabbers, brown nosers, assholes every one of them. They only respond to pain when they feel it themselves. I don't care what happens to them. Whatever grievous ill is coming their way they have earned it in spades.

I agree in principle, except that when a large crowd of Americans vote wedge over wallet, we ALL pay. They voted for God's man and we ALL got lies, scandals, Iraq, Dick, etc. I don't want to have to pay for their mistakes if there's anything I can do about it, and generally that means trying to save "them" from themselves. . . And failing.

I noticed our batshit crazy preznut was up in Canada extolling the successes of NAFTA. Yeah, if you have millions I guess NAFTA doesn't matter, but for the working stiff the loss of manufacturing jobs have caused us to slide on down to a banana republic.

NAFTA = Not A Fucking Thing for Americans.

Collapse is coming, and people are just gonna march right into it. Point of no return, thy name be 2001.

mudshark @ 4:

conservatives won't beleive it until they have no way to pay their bills.......then they'll say WTF happened...it was those losers...the Democrats....that's what they'll say.

No, they'll probably blame it on a International Jewish Banking conspiracy. It worked for their ideological cousins in the Wiemar Republic, it won't be long before Pat Buchanan and his ilk bring it up again. Then will come the Liberals, the gays etc...

Don't drink the trickle. It's poison. Besides, it's more like Tinkle-Down Economics, if you know what I mean.

In fact, if I may say so myself, I smell a fine mist in the air tonight.

Nahh, that's just the smell of piss risin' up off of yer shoes. And to think they convinced ya it was rainin'.

Wess @ 31:

I've said it quite a few times here and on other Blogs and forums, but I'll say it again...

I believe one of the biggest injustices in the US today, is the pathetic minimum wage its workers get paid.
Is it still $5.15?

For the richest nation on Earth to pay such a pathetic and miserly wage is an absolute disgrace.

BTW, and please don't mention "but many of those on Min. wage get tips" because the last time I checked it was only around 2 percent of those on min. wage do get their wage supplemented by tips.

It is nothing more than a way to keep people on the bottom rung of the ladder.

Hear! Hear!

Al Franken's touches on the reason in his new campaign ad against Corporate Shill Norm Coleman http://youtube.com/watch?v=90eEuKDs-C8 .

There is still more GOP trash left to take out in the next election cycle before the Bush economy can be corrected.

A banker told me that all kind of people have had their money yank from the bank for back Taxes to the IRS without permission or consent or acknowledgment. One even claim that their own mother were taking for a ride. This tells me that gov't is desperate for money and the next step of the Nazi of swiping funds without due process is happening. The branding of ID chip is coming! All that is left is the concentration camps and collecting shoes and gold, at the camps.

Isn’t this Trickle Down (VooDoo) Economics on steroids, after all?

Yep, can you believe we were stupid enough to go for that?

The number of jobs under Boob have gone up some 8 million. Problem is more than 12 million have been added to the work force. so, if unemployment really was 4.5% when he took over, it is at least really 8% now. Plus, none of the 8 million jobs added were very good jobs and some 6million of the may have gone to illegals which means unemployment for citizens is really more that 11%.

Wealth does not trickle down, it percolates up. Basic Keynesian economics. Worked great, time to get back to it and rebuild our infrastructure.

Trillions of dollars????geee....who's got the contracts????HMMMMMMMMMM?The only problem with Trickle down economics was it didn't trickle down far enough....but I digress....hmphhhh!

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from... want of honor and virtue, but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." -- John Adams

Snowball @ 40:

Orangutan @ 38:

Someone here needs to research the Federal Reserve System and its effect of our Monetary Policy here in the United States.
I highly recommend the Google Video "Fiat Empire"

Don't hear you complaining how they just bailed your precious stock market out.

Don't bother me.

big dark comeing soon

mudshark @ 46:

Trillions of dollars????geee....who's got the contracts????HMMMMMMMMMM?The only problem with Trickle down economics was it didn't trickle down far enough....but I digress....hmphhhh!

It sort of worked as long as the manufacturing was done in the states... now it trickles down in China and India most of all.

If anything, the growth in the Military Industrial Complex proves that Republicans do believe in Keynesian economics. The problem is, is that they insist on investing in short term gains by funding endless military investment instead of infrastructure and human capital.

Orangutan @ 48:

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from... want of honor and virtue, but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." -- John Adams

Was listening to Ed Schultz radio program today -- fill in host -- and a caller expressed outrage at the corporate welfare of the Fed's liquidity injection into the market, then asked "Where does that money come from, anyway?" The host couldn't answer!

Your post is dead on.

...

hey you can only print so much money....after a while it has no value....They know and understand this...they don't care as long as they get theirs......simple as that.

Let me get this straight: Libertarians would prefer that we invest our Social Security dollars in the stock market where they claim we would have higher gains. Leaving aside for the moment the majority of us whose investment would be insignificant and thus the promised gains we would have would also be, when the stock market fails and the Federal Reserve bails it out, we are supposed to hate the Federal Reserve. How interesting! Without the Federal Reserve, the stock market would fail. What then would we be left with?

Trying to apply logic to a Libertarian and its ideas, is like trying to teach an old cat to swim: both are traumatic useless wastes of time.

MeMyselfAndI @ 65:

Trying to apply logic to a Libertarian and its ideas, is like trying to teach an old cat to swim: both are traumatic useless wastes of time.

I'll admit old cats are useless, but I still like the furry critters. Libertarians, not so much so.

Idiotic tax cuts during the most expensive war in the history of mankind....only a backward arse dipsh*t reich-winger could think that makes sense. You stupid fools.

Repubs in the media think nobody is struggling if their inner circle isn't struggling. They never bother to see how the other half live

Snowball @ 68:

MeMyselfAndI @ 65:

Trying to apply logic to a Libertarian and its ideas, is like trying to teach an old cat to swim: both are traumatic useless wastes of time.

I'll admit old cats are useless, but I still like the furry critters. Libertarians, not so much so.

I love cats myself, it is the exercise of teaching a cat that is useless :-)

Libertarians are the posterboys for the "I got mine so fuck you" movement. I had a few sysadmins working at my school who were card carrying libertarians. All they did was bitch and moan, they were all drop outs -which was amusing to me, as I assumed that would have teach them some sort of humility regarding their reasoning skills- Alas they despised us grad students, I had one remind me every time I interacted with him about the "free ride" I was getting as a grad student (never mind the 80+hrs a week I was working getting paid less than minimum wage). Interestingly they were not able to solve most of the problems, so us engineering gradstudents had to fix most of the problems. They were employed for the most part because we felt sorry for the poor buggers. Still it was ironic to see a person with no skills and who is employed out of pity to bitch and moan about them "freeloaders." Many a time while the guy was on his tirade (usually while leaving my workstation in worse state that he found it) I thought to myself "if you only knew poor bastard!"

Things are so screwed up now a days, that the GOP is making Libertarians look reasonable.

I am not a statistician, but it seems like even though the average, or mean, income has apparently fallen from 2001-2005, the median income would be more representative of how President Bush's economic policies have affected the typical American.

Since it appears that there is a smaller group of people at the top who have been cashing in substantially during the Bush Administration, they would tend to skew the average income figures higher.

If a hypothetical median income level were plotted over the years, that would reduce the effect of skew caused by very rich people's incomes rising significantly while the rest of us are either stagnating or seeing our incomes decline.

I think the median income level would probably show that things are much worse for the typical American under Bush than the average income level shows.

Don't even get me started on this type of thing....a few quick notes about how to fix almost EVERYTHING:

The stock market is the greatest tool ever invented for moving money from the middle and lower classes to the upper. In a nutshell, the little guy, by his nature always does the wrong thing, and the big guy is the beficiary of his lack of ability to be a portfolio manager....and I don't want to hear from scum reich wingers about how they should learn, or hire someone who knows, because about eighty percent of "professionals" at the retail level couldn't consistently make money in the stock market to save their life....and usually the friendliest most personable ones who they will want to hire are the most incompetent. We NEED to go back to the pension system, and this means that the employer has to actually FUND it adequately, not bet on pie in the sky stock returns to ensure an adequate amount of capital availability.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We can fix virtually all of our economic problems with just a couple of judicious strokes of the pen.

Raise the minimum wage to 9.50 an hour (this will increase EVERYONES wages across the board) with rapid increases until we get to a "living wage" over a 2 year period. This will fire up the economy like no ones business....it wouldn't even hurt the rich people as the poor will be SPENDING their new found wealth which generates profits What would you do if your income increased 30-40% overnight?

Implement generous social programs. Get people on their feet. "New Deal" sorts of things. After wages are paid, and people start spending money, permanent new jobs will be created. We could put people to work repairing the infrastructure.

Reinstate the estate tax. It's a big cash cow which was eliminated to help guarantee multiple generations of the useless wealthy like Paris Hilton. If your family has twenty million dollars, and can't figure out how to make more money with that amount over multiple generations, then you deserve to lose it. The founding fathers were opposed to the concept of a permanent aristocrasy as we have developed now.

Incrementally jack up the top tier income tax to "French" levels. And fuck you, I know what you wingnuts are saying. This actually doesn't hurt the economy as the wealthy have the lowest propensity to consume (generating economic activity).....and yes, yes, I know, the wealthy are all brilliant geniuses who "deserve" their wealth....here's a news flash..most of them wouldn't have crazy big money in the first place if it wasn't for the GOVERNMENT. How many great fortunes do you thing would be in existence today if it weren't for the interstate transportation system? Or if there wasn't the ability to enforce CONTRACTS through the courts? Isn't it only fair in that they have received the most that they should give the most back.

Phase in one payer healthcare. The "tax increase" required to do this would be a wash, as the amount of the increase would be offset by the reduction in premiums and co-payments......plus we get rid of all the nasty conflict of interest from them trying to hang onto our money instead of paying it out in claims.....and I don't want to hear any shit about waiting.....I just spent SEVEN hours in the emergency room of a for profit hospital waiting for someone to X-ray my hand, give me a tetnus shot, and pull some road debris out of my right arm.....and it took me TWO WEEKS to get a doctors appointment for follow up.

The national debt/deficit-the increased tax revenue, compounded with the elimination of wingnut/corporate welfare should run a surplus. Additionally, here is how we take a big chunk out of dubya's war expenses. First pass an edict in both houses of congress declaring that war is not a for profit business. Then, NATIONALIZE all companies/divisions of companies exclusively engaged in "war services"....this includes Halliburton, Blackwater, I'm sure parts of GE, etc. A REASONABLE remuneration can be made to stockholders....maybe a moderate premium above "book value", so that the capital holders get back their investment outlay, plus a small return. This will give the government access to all of the retained earnings of the various firms while maintaining their productive capacity in the event that we do actually have to defend ourselves against someone who actually poses a threat to us. Then, start implementing specialzed retroactive income taxes taking ALL benefit obtained by dubya's illegal war from everyone who makes in excess of say 250K per year.....should take a nice chunk out of the debt, and fuck those who are harmed by this.....there is evidence that the military industrial complex helped cook up the idea of invading Iraq, so they shouldn't have had the money in the first place. Don't we often seize things utilized in the commission of a crime?

I'll let someone else tackle the environmental stuff.

SNAP DOWN on the fundies in the military. Anyone caught prosthelatizing like that prick with Pat Tillman's Mother gets a black mark and three months in Leavenworth.

Oh, one other thing. PROSECUTE dubya's administration far and wide, including the people at the top. There are all kinds of charges to go around, and all the way down to their crony political appointments. And when we get done with them, we should sign back onto the international criminal court and let them be tried for war crimes.

V V

PS Instead of "bringing back the jobs" force multi national companies to pay western style wages to second and third world countries where they are currently exploiting the cheap local labor. This will cause those economies to explode and develop into consumer markets which can actually afford to buy the products and services that they we produce

Will we ever hear the words balanced budget again. America was doing good in 1999 to the election. We have jobs, education and even a little savings in the US Treasury. Americans could save for that house or vacation. Even put a little in the Stock Market or go to Vegas. That American dream of two cars and a chicken in every pot. Then we allowed George W. Bush to steal the election. Even before the proof came out Americans knew the numbers didn't add up for Bush to win. But Karl Rove used God's Name to calm all the fears and said God wanted Bush as President. It's been down hill from their. 9/11 was known as Tenet was following Cheney's orders to let it happen. Remember all the Bush friends cancelled their flights that day. Muslims were sent home fast without being questioned or checked. Osama's Family had been at a meeting in New York with Daddy Bush and Halliburton the week before. Bush/Cheney have had 6 1/2 years to steal from the US Treasury and let their big business friends rob the public. Bush kicked Greenspan out fast and put his puppet in his place. Golden Sachs Paulson came in to get what he could before it was all over. Millions of Americans are losing their homes and millions don't have jobs yet the White House says things are great.
Now Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy have told Bush to fix the problem. Sweet. Warren Buffet is looking into getting Country Wide to repair it but he wont get this Administration involved. I wonder who Warren's talking to? We have given away 1 Trillion dollars to Iraq already and we're still giving more. Billions have been given to Bush/Cheney contractors for no work done. The US Embassy in Iraq is still a mess and we're spend billions for nothing but leaky roofs, pipes, floors and all the inside is messed up and the out side is falling apart yet Bush wants more money. Foreign business don't trust the US and wont invest and now people will see a recession and ask what happen. I say George W. Bush happen and we watched it everyday and did nothing. People say the Democrats should do something but the country belongs to the American people. We elect people and we can fire them. Nixon would have loved to live today because he wouldn't have to resign for the crimes he committed. Cheney is all over the place and lying as he goes. Karl Rove is under every investigation yet the media heals him as a brain. Gonzales can't even get the Iraq leaders to believe he's a lawyer so they kicked him out of Iraq. Gonzales lies so much he can't remember who he is sometimes.
The United States of America belongs to the American people and we can stop this crime wave if we stand up and do and stop waiting for others to do our job.

Addendum to previous:

Prosecution-I meant to mention that a little creativity can go a long way. If we were to establish that there were criminal conspiracies involved in the various outrages of the last six and a half years, to the extent of my knowledge, all parties involved could be prosecuted under the RICO statutes that they use to put gangsters in jail.

Fundies-the rise of fundiementalism correlates highly with economic despair. If we fix it so people can have not only jobs, but jobs that pay enough to live, there would be a pronounced reduction in the number of people who break down and surrender themselves to the lord's good care. Also, a pie in the sky fantasy of mine is implementing classes in logic as a prerequisite for graduating high school....nice innocuous logic....it's not scary like evolution or whatever....of course it would point out things like the same science you reject was used to develope planes, trains and automobiles, so by rights you shouldn't ride in them.......

V V

GDP has DECLINED every year for the last 3 years and is on track today for an annualized GDP that is LOWER than last year.
2004 GDP = 3.6%
2005 GDP = 3.1%
2006 GDP = 2.9%
2007 annualized real GDP in the first 6 months (1st Q 0.6% + 2nd Q 3.4%) divided by 2 = 2.0%

"Supply Side/Trickle Down" economic policy has been every bit the disaster for the domestic USA economy under George W. Bush that it was under every other Republican president who has ever promoted it.

BTW, Rudy Giuliani prides himself in being a "Supply Side" Republican...

wsj.com
The Wall Street Journal Online

July 27, 2007, 8:53 am
GDP Revised Down for Last Three Years
The economy grew at a 3.4% in the second quarter, in line with economists’ expectations, but growth was slower than previously estimated in each of the last three years, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

The changes lowered the average annual growth of real GDP to 3.2% from 2004 to 2006, 0.3 percentage point less than the earlier figures. The 2006 growth rate was revised down 0.4 percentage point to 2.9%, driven by downward revisions to investory investment, personal consumption expenditures for durable goods, state and local government spending and exports. The rate in 2005 fell to 3.1% from 3.2%, and the 2004 rate dropped to 3.6% from 3.9%

The BEA’s annual revisions are made each July to incorporate new and more comprehensive data. The downward revision to spending could add some doubts to already softer numbers from the latest report. Real personal consumption expenditures increased 1.3% in the second quarter, down from a 3.7% increase in the first quarter. Durable goods were up 1.6% vs. 8.8% in the first quarter, while nondurable goods dropped 0.8% compared to an earlier increase of 3%. –Sudeep Reddy

Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/07/27/gdp-revised-down-for-last-thre...

At the same time, costs for transportation, health insurance, local property taxes, college tuitions, etc. have skyrocketed.

Don't worry, GOD will make everything better. :-)

Why? In short, because it SUCKS!!!! details to be found in this thread...............JD

Dumbya's Rethug. and criminal millionaire friends are completely satisfied since they have been screwing the little people for many, many years.

It's Me @ 89:

Whenever you hear a Dem-hater grouse about the "Carter years of high inflation and high interest rates", know that they haven't got a CLUE how economic policy works and how the Federal Reserve sees its job of controlling inflation with higher interest rates, per Paul Volker. Higher interest rates are SUPPOSED to accompany high inflation because, by and large, they are the CURE for high inflation. This is why Fed Chairman Bernanke today threatens to raise interest rates or leave them where they are and not lower them on the premise that he is "worried about inflation" (a worry he needn't have, btw, but that's another topic).

Reagan was so pleased with Carter's appointment as Fed Chairman, Paul Volker, he kept him on the job throughout his entire 8 year presidency until Volker chose to retire from the job himself a few months before Reagan's last days in office. Little wonder Reagan liked Paul Volker so much. He had already made the unpopular but necessary decisions required to tame out-of-control inflation under Jimmy Carter and the inflation arc that had been building for about a decade before Carter took office was already showing signs of coming under control by the end of Reagan's second year in office.

Oh, and, of course, Reagan really liked the idea that he would get the credit for the hard decisions Carter made in choosing the right person for the right job of Fed Chairman at the right time (to his political detriment) while he had to make virtually no unpopular decsions with respect to inflation and interest rates.

Excellent post and points that you make!

What concerns me is who ever is elected President has such an uphill climb in front of them because of the deep hole that Bush has dug this nation into with his "borrow and spend" tactics. The Bush administration has borrowed money and run up the national debt like a college kid with their first credit card.

While many have pointed out, and I believe correctly, that this is a tactic to make the FDR "New Deal" safety net collapse under financial pressure over the long haul... it really doesn't matter what his intent when the bill comes due, it will have to be paid.

David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, has been throwing up signal flares on this for the last couple of years and with good reason:

Revealed: US comptroller says US taxes would have to double to pay for Bush budget in 2040

"The picture I will lay out for you today is not a pretty one and it’s getting worse with the passage of time," said David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in a Thursday morning hearing of the Senate's Budget Committee. "Continuing on our current fiscal path would gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately even our domestic tranquility and our national security," he warned.

Walker heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the independent, nonpartisan watchdog of Congress that evaluates the spending of American tax dollars and advises Congress on improving government programs.

While he acknowledged the single-year fiscal improvement touted by the Bush administration for 2006, he said that "it did not fundamentally change our long-term fiscal outlook." He also noted that since 2000, America's net social insurance commitments and other fiscal obligations have increased to $50 trillion from $20 trillion, representing four times the nation's total economic output. Rising national health care costs are the greatest culprit according to data collected by Walker's agency.

The head of the GAO also warned that if no action is taken now to control government spending, severe tax hikes could be necessary. He stated that, "balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as cutting total federal spending by 60 percent or raising federal taxes to 2 times today’s level."

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Government_watchdog_says_control_spend...

Additionally, with the war in Iraq costing us an estimated $9 Billion dollars a month, the situation is actually worse than what the Comptroller said last year. Bonddad has another excellent post on this:

The Iraq War: We Can't Afford It
Excerpt:

While I was against this way from the beginning (largely because of the same reasons VP Cheney outlined in 1994), the bottom line is this war is costing us a fortune which we simply cannot afford. In addition, this also highlights the simple fact that the federal deficit -- despite protestations to the contrary -- is nowhere near under control.

From the CBO:

Since September 2001, the Congress has appropriated $602 billion for military operations and other activities related to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terrorism. In addition, although not explicitly appropriated for that purpose, an estimated $2 billion has been spent by the VA for war-related benefits. Specific appropriations, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, have risen to $120 billion in 2006 and $170 billion in 2007.

In the same report, the CBO also provided an estimate of the cost over the next 10 years.

the 2007 average of about 210,000 to 30,000 by the beginning of 2010 and then remain at that level through 2017.(1) CBO estimates that the cost to the U.S. government under this scenario would range from $481 billion to $603 billion over the 2008–2017 period, depending on how long the current personnel level in Iraq is sustained (see Table 1).

In the second scenario, the number of personnel deployed to Iraq and other locations associated with the war on terrorism would decline more gradually, from an average of 210,000 in 2007 to 75,000 by the start of 2013 and then remain at that level through 2017. CBO estimates that total costs to the government under this scenario would range from $924 billion to $1,010 billion over the 2008–2017 period, again depending on how long the current personnel level in Iraq is sustained.

Notice both scenarios presupposed a drop in troop levels. Whether or not this happens is anybody's guess at this point.

But to me the real issue is how this is impacting the US' national finances. Considering the extreme problems in the credit markets right now, it seems appropriate to remind people of the following fact: Despite claims to the contrary, the US deficit is nowhere near under control.

Here is a table from the Treasury Department that illustrates this point clearly. Notice that for the last 5 years the US has issued over $550 billion of net new government debt.
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86

Here's a chart from the US Treasury that illustrates that once again the US Congress will have to raise the debt limit for the Treasury.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/19/124355/640

The economy is wonderful. The multi-billionaires are doing extremely well.