Are you worried about the National Debt?

[AzCivic]

I used to be...like many Americans I fell for the scare tactics that some politicians like to use concerning the "huge" national debt. I mean think about the number, 8.something TRILLION dollars. It IS huge, a number the human mind almost can't manage to make sense of.

But lets take a different look at it. As my accounting teacher would always say a number by itself is usually meaningless. Is a $10million net income good for a company? It all depends, what was the net income before? What kind of net income do other companies in the industry make? How does this relate to debt? etc. As you can see the number is practically meaningless by itself, just like the number that represents the national debt. How does this debt compare to our GDP? Take a look:


Does it look so bad now? Not really. Yeah it has gone up in recent years, but thats what tends to happen after we get attacked on our own soil. Fact is our economy is so damn big that a 8.something trillion dollar debt isn't really all that bad.


On another related note, do you think we spend too much on defense? You probably do, again a result of the scare tactics some politicians and their brainless followers like to use. Lets take a look: