Big Red calculates US debt

What do you do if your calculator isn’t big enough to show your country’s debt?

When Matt Miles couldn’t find one which could show 16 digits needed to displays the USA’s debt he made a new one that does.

The USA’s national debt totalled nearly $11.8 trillion – or $11,792,918,170,836.43 – at the start of September and  Big Red (I suspect the pun was intended) calculates trillions with ease.

But it’s not just a gimmick. Matt says:

We hear people talking about deficit spending and the national debt – the amount our children will owe if we don’t do something about it – and it seems scary but somewhat distant. But when you actually look at the numbers and realize just how big it is. . .

But it makes a much bigger point. It helps us realize what we’ve created in deficit spending and how it effects our national debt, it sobers us up to think about what we must do to shrink the debt, and it gives us all an opportunity to share this thinking with others.

If you want to scare yourself, click here to watch the total grow.

The size of that debt doesn’t just have implications for people in the USA. That country’s place in the global economy means it will have an impact world-wide.

China and India are growing quickly which might off-set some of the effects, but even so if the USA is limping it will hold back economic recovery elsewhere.