U.S. National Debt has Fallen!

Congress has increased the ceiling on the national debt to $9.8 trillion. Let me assure you that the U.S. debt is increasing only superficially. Counting the debt in U.S. dollars is like counting the money in your wallet by the number of bills you have, ignoring their denomination. You can’t measure the U.S. debt in U.S. dollars; we need an external measurement. How much has the national debt changed in, say, Canadian dollars?

Month USD Exchange CAN
Sep 2002 6.2 trillion 1.576 9.8 trillion
Sep 2007 9.0 trillion 1.027 9.2 trillion

Over the last five years, the U.S. national debt has fallen by $CAD 600 billion. There are advantages to having the U.S. dollar in a free fall. Those suckers who have loaned us money are actually paying us to use it!

Posted by Jeremy on October 1, 2007 3 Comments.

3 Comments

  1. Jeremy replied:

    You might not want to perform this exercise with your own savings and investments. If you weren’t smart enough to follow the government’s example (spend spend spend!), you may not be happy with the results.

    October 1st, 2007 at 10:52 am. Permalink.

  2. Mark A. hershberger replied:

    Unless you saw the free fall coming a year ago and moved your investments out of the US.

    But, unless you’re smart enough to make your creditor’s people who use different currency than you, your own debt isn’t going to be reduced.

    October 1st, 2007 at 12:59 pm. Permalink.

  3. Bob Aman replied:

    Yeah, my investments were out of the United States, but since my account is still represented in dollars, I’m still hemorrhaging money in terms of actual value. I’m not really all that worried though. In a year or two, the Fed will raise the rates and the value of the dollar will rise again.

    February 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pm. Permalink.

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