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The US debt in pictures

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Date: 2012-11-02
Tags: visualization finance civic

I receive an email forward from my Grandpa that I found interesting.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Fw: The US debt in pictures Physical concept of money...great graphics One Hundred Dollars

$100 - Most counterfeited money denomination in the world. Keeps the world moving.

Ten Thousand Dollars

$10,000 - Enough for a great vacation or to buy a used car. Approximately one year of work for the average human on earth.

One Million Dollars

$1,000,000 - Not as big of a pile as you thought, huh? Still this is 92 years of work for the average human on earth

One Hundred Million Dollars

$100,000,000 - Plenty to go around for everyone. Fits nicely on an ISO / Military standard sized pallet.

One Billion Dollars

$1,000,000,000 - Now we are getting serious!

One Trillion Dollars

$1,000,000,000,000

When the U.S government speaks about a 1.7 trillion deficit per year, this is the volume of cash the U.S. Government borrowed in 2010 to run itself.

Keep in mind it is double stacked pallets of $100 million dollars each, full of $100 dollar bills. You are going to need a lot of trucks to freight this around.

If you spent $1 million a day since Jesus was born, you would have not spent $1 trillion by now; only about $700 billion – the same amount the banks got during bailout.

One Trillion Dollars

Comparison of $1,000,000,000,000 dollars to a standard-sized American Football field and European Football field.

15 Trillion Dollars

$15,000,000,000,000 - US national debt (credit bill) has just topped the 15 trillion 2 months before Christmas 2011.

Statue of Liberty seems rather worried as United States national debt passes 20% of the entire world's combined GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In 2011 the National Debt will exceed 100% of GDP, and venture into the 100%+ debt-to-GDP ratio that the European PIIGS have (bankrupting nations). $ 114.5 Trillion Dollars

$114,500,000,000,000 - US unfunded liabilities

To the right you can see the pillar of cold hard $100 bills that dwarfs the WTC & Empire State Building - both at one point world's tallest buildings. If you look carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty.

The 114.5 Trillion dollar super-skyscraper is the amount of money the U.S. Government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Social Security, Military and civil servant pensions. It is the money USA knows it will not have to pay all its bills.

If you live in USA this is also your personal credit card bill; you are responsible along with everyone else to pay this back. The citizens of USA created the U.S. Government to serve them, this is what the U.S. Government has done while “serving” The People.

The unfunded liability is calculated on current tax and funding inputs, and future demographic shifts in the US Population.

Note: On the above 114.5T image the size of the base of the money pile is half a trillion, not $1T as on 15T image. The height is double. This was done to reflect the base of Empire State and WTC more closely.

By Ryan Wold · © 2012–2026 Ryan Wold

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