National Debt Reaches $12 TRILLION Dollars

Yes, today the national debt is believed to have reached $12,000,000,000,000.00. According to the twitter site @NationalDebt, it increased by a mere $40 billion dollars YESTERDAY.

This is an astonishing amount of money. Let's break it down into more manageable pieces.

For some time now I have had a "National Debt Clock" at the bottom of this blog. (Scroll down and enjoy those rapidly increasing numbers at your leisure.) Given the estimated U.S. population of 307,710,000, that averages out to about $39,100 for every man, woman, and child. My family of six? Our share of that is $234,600. Ouch.

If this debt stopped growing immediately and were paid off at a rate of $1,000,000 per day, without any interest, it would be paid off in the year 34,863 A.D. At $1,000,000,000 per day, it would still take 33 years.

Our current penny weighs 2.5 grams. How much would $12 trillion in pennies weigh? 30 million metric tons!