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I'd also include an external link to this:
{{Skip to talk}}
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/091903J.shtml
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Except, it's very misleading, with the context Sloan provides. No one should read these numbers alone without an unfriendly analyst's analysis in the other hand.
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== Carmen & Rogoff debt-to-GDP threshold at 90 % is gross debt NOT public debt ==
----


I emailed Carmen Reinhart about this question specifically and asked which one it is that they meant. She replied that it is gross debt, not public debt(or net debt).
It appears that the page [[U.S. national debt]] should probably be merged into this one. —[[User:Mulad|Mulad]] 02:02, May 1, 2004 (UTC)
==Euros==
Are we sure Saddam Hussein started selling oil for euros in 1998? I thought it was 2000. Euros were only introduced to the market in 1999.


Our exchange:
==Debt level==


Hello,
I'm looking for a reference to verify this claim in the text, which I challenge.
I just wonder about the 90 % threshold of public debt which usually induces a GDP growth slowdown.
In the latest working paper from April this is defined as 'public debt'. Correct me if I am wrong, but the net public debt is around 68 % for the U.S.(and forecasted to rise to about mid-70s within a year or two and then stabilize).
However, America's gross debt is now over 100 %.
Which measure should be used? And can gross debt be used too for this? The term used in the working paper from April was 'public debt' - not net public debt.
I would be very happy if there was some kind of clarification on this as googling have not made me wiser!


_______________________________________________________________________________
"The debt of United States is much lower than what it is in many other developed countries, such as Japan and many parts of the western Europe, where the debt is generally over 100% of GDP."


Yes it is gross debt, which for the US is above the 90% threshold. This is the longest time series beginning in 1790.
The EU limits its members to deficits of 3% of GDP.
It is central (federal government), so it does not include state debt and government sponsored enterprises, which now include the two mortgage giants
best
Carmen
Carmen M. Reinhart
Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow
Peterson Institute for International Economics
1750 Massachussetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20036-1903
tel. 202-454-1325
fax. 202-659-3225
creinhart@piie.com
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~creinhar/
www.carmenreinhart.com
_______________________________________


== Wrong numbers in foreign/domestic debt ratio ==
**And the debt to 60% of GDP. - [[User:Jerryseinfeld|Jerryseinfeld]] 16:15, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)


This article from gao.gov: http://gao.gov/assets/650/649848.pdf , states that about 5 % of the debt is from foreign investors, on Page 18.
----
But the wikipedia article says around 40%. The sources to this page are from the banks of the lending countries, and I would say that the US have more credible numbers, than China and Taiwan.


It's best to make that amount a cross reference. It is too hard for Wikipedians to update changing numbers in multiple places.
Next person to edit, please append "near Times Square" to "most famously at the corner of West 43rd Street and Sixth Ave (Avenue of the Americas)," as that address means almost nothing to 99% of Americans, whereas "near Times Square" is much more useful.
40% is about right in 2013.


==Social Security and debt==
== Introduction Text ==
''"There are different ways to lower, or pay off, the national debt. Though, if you consider social security as part of the national debt of the United States then the debt can never be totally paid off."''


Hey, I do not know a better word, but in the first paragraph right on the start of the article (paragraph? really? dictionary is stupid or?!) at the end there is written:
Is this true? Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program, so I don't see why it requires debt to operate, except in the sense that the government always owes a debt to its employees because paychecks are only issued twice a month. While it's true that the Social Security trust fund is running a surplus now, that won't always be the case. --[[User:Phenry|Paul]] 20:16, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


''On June 30, 2015, debt held by the public was $13.08 trillion or about 74% of the previous 12 months of GDP.''
==US "trillion"==
In the United States, a "trillion" is 10^12, not 10^15, meaning that the debt is only 10 times (not 10,000 times) the amount of currency. See answers.com for confirmation. I edited the start of the article to reflect these changes.


This is the "public debt", but we are in the National Debt article, this sentence is very... confusing for persons who have no idea what is public and what is national debt. The public debt at the Date was I would say already far over 18 trillion dollar and over 100% of the GDP. Right now we have national debt to GDP ratio according to the US Debt Clock: 103.9855% GDP debt (means whole US economy, everything what is produced, done, consumed and so on in a whole year would not be enough to pay off the debt, if the state would "shutdown", no lights, no electricity on the street, nothing, if every cent would go to debt for a whole year... If the US would be a European Country with the common problems of South-Eastern European States (Most of these are today seperated states which were created after the Balkan War, which the younger people, okay I'm young too, lets say people under 20 years old can not remember anything of any news reports or so about the Balkan War and the European and US intervention (back than the World was okay, China became oil net importer in 1993, Soviet Union just had fallen down after it carried the whole almost puppet-states, with the East-German being the best (I talked to my mother, born in Poland, and I have some family still living in today very west Poland, meaning less than 100 kilometers air distance to the German Border (which is unguarded since January or May 2004, I think May 2004, "clicks", is it military or do you really can say it to a civilian?!) problem: there is no direct route to the Border, since the border is the "Odra" (river) you have to drive north, away from us (air distance) and than in the former "Frankfurt (an der Oder)" (Frankfurt (on the Odra) to seperate from the 10-times larger city of Frankfurt in West-Germany with the highest financial buildings and I think there is the main German stock, like the NYMEX in New York, DAX it is called...
== POV issues ==


anyway I think the US CAN do it and handle it somehow without an deflation, which often occurs before the real inflation begins, and with a very large inflation ("Hyperinflation"), in this case the debt would be away without doing anything further, but it will not happen to the us dollar, the Zimbabwe-Dollar had numbers which I can not translate (since 1 billion in English is 1 "Milliarde" in German for example), it was something with 15 or 16 numbers, first two where 92 and I think followed by 12 or 14 zeros... this was the rate in PER CENT (!). It was the heaviest Inflation known or in "newer history", would be the easiest way for the US Goverment, but it would also make the rich people poor.
there are alot of normative statements in this article. for example:
"The economy of Japan could be more '''worrisome'''" in the Calculating the debt section.


See here I found it:
--[[User:GregLoutsenko|GregLoutsenko]] 20:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)


''During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent in mid-November 2008.''
== Presidential Debt Table ==
The following has been moved from the article itself. - [[User:RedWordSmith|RedWordSmith]] 00:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


''In 2009, Zimbabwe stopped printing its currency, with currencies from other countries being used
"Of course since gov't budgets are primarily the responsibility of Congress, not the President, the entire table is a worthless piece of partisan propaganda. Can someone revise the table showing the increase in national debt under Democratic and Republican controlled Congresses?"
Over the course of the five-year span of hyperinflation, the inflation rate fluctuated greatly. At one point, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe predicted that it would reach 1.5 million percent. In June 2008 the annual rate of price growth was 11.2 million percent. The worst of the inflation occurred in 2008, leading to the abandonment of the currency.'' '''The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid-November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month. This resulted in US$1 becoming equivalent to the staggering sum of $Z2,621,984,228,675,650,147,435,579,309,984,228'''


== "COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 spendings" sub-heading ==
== Text removed ==


Other than the spelling error ('spendings' instead of 'spending,' maybe non-native English or bot submission?), the article referenced as evidence has been updated & also doesn't support the statements present (references May report not included in article released in April and updated in June, numerical totals of expected spending are different). This isn't adding anything meaningful & doesn't promote any embellishment like a stub would. This sub-heading should be removed or reworked as a symbolic link to a separate wiki entry specifically covering the 2020 & 2021 pandemic related spending by the U.S.A.
I've removed this text from the article:


== Chart out of date ==
: Far more serious than either of these questions, which involve "only [[money]]", is the question of the [[triple bottom line]] which is the [[financial capital|financial]], [[social capital|social]] and [[natural capital|natural]] debt created by exploiting systems with an internal [[integrity]], drawing on them as if they were free. Financial capital is not, in general, a good guide to social or natural capital flows, and many economists claim it is a contrary — even inherently contrary — process. ''See [[uneconomic growth]] for this discussion in detail.''


The chart, here, [[National debt of the United States#/media/File:U.S. Federal Net Interest as Pct GDP.png]], is about 10 years old and may be easily misunderstood to be current. Recommend deletion. [[User:D wigglesworth|D wigglesworth]] ([[User talk:D wigglesworth|talk]]) 03:44, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
: A serious failure in [[accountability]] for instance causes loss of social capital which decreases [[trust]] essential to [[commerce]] and [[polity]], while loss of [[natural capital]] causes a reduction in [[nature's services]] (such as irrigation or flood control) that must then be made up for by human effort, stressing the human economy. There are no [[list of economists|economists]] who claim that the financial debt or deficit is actually independent of these factors, and very few who claim that [[economic growth]] indicators or [[measures of national income]] work well enough to rely on them utterly.


It can be found in this section, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Interest_and_debt_service_costs <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:D wigglesworth|D wigglesworth]] ([[User talk:D wigglesworth#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/D wigglesworth|contribs]]) 03:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
: Thus, the ultimate political risk: collapse of an entire polity, which happened for instance in the [[collapse of the Soviet Union]], or rise of a wholly different [[political economy]], as happened after hyper-inflation in [[Weimar Germany]], with the rise of [[Nazism]]. As this is in no state's interest (even [[China]] and [[Iran]] would suffer in the ensuing turmoil), it is likely that the world's nations are ready to do their utmost to back U.S. government debt.

This appears to be bordering on a personal essay/opinion piece, and I don't see any references backing it up in this article. I already removed this passage:

: Still, Congress has failed to act in time at least once. In [[1995]], the federal government closed down for six days from [[November 14]] to [[November 20]] due to partisan wrangling between the Congress and President [[Bill Clinton]].

In its original context (and the fact that it's on this article), it's implying that this has something to do with the national debt. It didn't. The government failed to pass the required spending bills and failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running, and that's why the government closed. The debt ceiling didn't play into it at all. —[[User:Cleared as filed|Cleared as filed.]] 14:56, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

== Benefits of debt ==

This article takes a very negative view on debt, and I understand the many reasons for doing so. However, I think that even a small mention of the ''benefits'' of having a debt would balance and improve this article well. Even economies (both public and private) which do well, often have debt (I hear that Norway doesn't but they're just lucky :)) -[[User:Samulili|Samulili]] 11:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)klkl

== Unsourced ==

I rv the statement ''A recession began in '''2001'''.'' to the prior statement ''A recession began in '''2000'''.'' We'd prefer not to see this kind of arbitrary change made without some specific source cited. [[User:John Reid|John Reid]] 23:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Sorry, http://www.nber.org/cycles/slate011303.pdf, which I was going to post to the talk page

Or, if you want a more unbiased source,
http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html


Also, who is we?
If we is the Wikipedia admins, why didn't you catch this in the first place (2000 was either unsourced or incorrectly sourced). Or NBER is not the official source, which I'm sure is wrong because of the following link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1407245.stm.

== Paying the debt date edit ==

In the paying the debt article, in its large list of beginnings of recessions it states that the most recent recession began in 2000. Using either the traditional economic textbook definition of two consecutive quarters of negative growth OR using the National Bureau of Economic Research's more nebulous definiton the recession began in 2001, not 2000.

Also, the entire paragraph is extremely POV and seems to be taken straight from a POV book. I'm personally tempted to remove it, but having no background in economics, I will leave that to someone who knows what they're doing.

== Is this not a POV-driven edit? ==

207.87.144.77 keeps making the following edit. He changes this:

"''In 1998-2000 federal debt growth slowed to 1.4% annually (President Clinton’s surplus). A recession began in 2001. Then, President Bush cut taxes, debt growth rose, the recession ended, and the economy has continued to grow.''"

To this:

"''In 1998-2000 federal debt growth slowed to 1.4% annually (President Clinton’s surplus). A recession began in 2001. Then, President Bush cut taxes and debt growth rose.''"

I reverted his edit, and then he changed it right back. He had this to say about it: "Economists are still debating whether or not the recession is "over", but it is clear that debt growth has continued."

1. What economists are these? Random Bush detractors? I recommend you go read the definition of [[recession]], and go do some research. I suggest you read this page: [[Early 2000s recession]]. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession officially lasted from March 2001 to November 2001. It can be argued that it lasted, at the very most, until 2003. It '''is''' over now though.

2. It's clear that the national debt has continued to grow? Well no kidding. '''It has increased every single year for the past 46 years.''' [[User:King nothing 2|King nothing 2]] 01:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

== Replies to arguments against paying down the debt ==

Regarding sources for the table, the first four columns come directly from the [http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm Bureau of the Public Debt] and the next three columns were calculated in a spreadsheet, directly from those numbers (specifically, the numbers in columns 2 and 4). I can add a note about this below the source if that will help.

Another item of interest concerning the source is that the [http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm Bureau of the Public Debt] numbers from 1866 through 1913 differ a bit from another often-used source, the [http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p2-12.pdf Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970]. Thayer was likely using this latter source (or a source close to it) as calculations using this source better approximate the numbers that he gave. Thayer's numbers of 29, 99.7, 59, 27, 57, and 36 are calculated to be 29, 99.96, 58, 22, 58, and 36. Only the 22 is significantly different. The following table shows the same calculations using this latter source:

<pre>
FEDERAL DEBT (in millions of dollars) AND PERCENT CHANGE

High Debt Low Debt
---------------------------- Prior Low High Prior Low
Year Debt Year Debt to High to Low to Low Events
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1804 86.43 1812 45.21 -47.69 War of 1812 (1812-14)
1816 127.33 1821 89.99 181.65 -29.33 99.04 Panic of 1819
1822 93.55 1836 0.04 3.96 -99.96 -99.96 Panic of 1837
1843 32.74 1846 15.55 87184.08 -52.51 41352.78 Mex-Amer War (1846-48)
1851 68.30 1857 28.70 339.25 -57.98 84.57 Panic of 1857
1861 90.58 215.61 Civil War (1961-65)
1866 2755.76 1873 2151.21 2942.29 -21.94 2274.88 Panic of 1873
1879 2298.91 1893 961.43 6.87 -58.18 -55.31 Panic of 1893
1915 1191.26 23.91 World War I (1914-18)
1919 25484.51 1930 16185.31 2039.28 -36.49 1258.67 Great Depression
</pre>

Source: [http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p2-12.pdf Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2], Series Y 493, pages 1117-1118

Following is the table using the former source which I posted in the article:

<pre>
FEDERAL DEBT (in millions of dollars) AND PERCENT CHANGE

High Debt Low Debt
---------------------------- Prior Low High Prior Low
Year Debt Year Debt to High to Low to Low Events
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1804 86.43 1812 45.21 -47.69 War of 1812 (1812-14)
1816 127.33 1821 89.99 181.65 -29.33 99.04 Panic of 1819
1822 93.55 1836 0.04 3.96 -99.96 -99.96 Panic of 1837
1843 32.74 1846 15.55 87184.08 -52.51 41352.78 Mex-Amer War (1846-48)
1851 68.30 1857 28.70 339.25 -57.98 84.56 Panic of 1857
1861 90.58 215.61 Civil War (1961-65)
1866 2773.24 1873 2234.48 2961.61 -19.43 2366.84 Panic of 1873
1879 2349.57 1893 1545.99 5.15 -34.20 -30.81 Panic of 1893
1915 3058.14 97.81 World War I (1914-18)
1919 27390.97 1930 16185.31 795.68 -40.91 429.25 Great Depression
</pre>

Source: [http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm Bureau of the Public Debt]

As can be seen, only the figures for 1893 and 1915 differ significantly and the same basic arguments hold despite the difference in numbers. In any case, the Bureau of the Public Debt numbers seemed likely to be the more accurate since they are on the Treasury website and can be easily updated whereas I don't believe that the other source is being updated. Until recently, I believe that it existed only in actual physical volumes and the online source simply contains copies of those volumes.

I well understand the value of sourcing and verifying all edits on Wikipedia. However, I would note that the dates of surpluses and depressions in the prior section (Paying the debt and arguments against doing so) are totally unsourced. It's only because I'm very familiar with Thayer's arguments that I deduced their source. I have no reason to think that Thayer's original arguments are political but I have heard those arguments cited numerous times in a political context. They seem to be a favorite argument on the Internet for excusing the debt. In any case, Thayer's arguments seem flawed or, at least, incomplete. He makes no mention of the wars during which the debt rocketed. Also, he states that the six periods that he lists were followed by the only six depressions in U.S. history. I have found no source that backs this up and several that seem to contradict it. If his arguments are to be allowed, it would seem that there needs to be some allowable way to objectively counter them. In any case, his arguments were added by someone with the IP 12.73.228.87 on 12 March 2006. I believe that this is the paragraph that the above comment under "Paying the debt date edit" is calling "extremely POV".

Latest revision as of 13:01, 21 April 2024

Former good article nomineeNational debt of the United States was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 24, 2009Good article nomineeNot listed
In the newsA news item involving this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on August 6, 2011.

Carmen & Rogoff debt-to-GDP threshold at 90 % is gross debt NOT public debt[edit]

I emailed Carmen Reinhart about this question specifically and asked which one it is that they meant. She replied that it is gross debt, not public debt(or net debt).

Our exchange:

Hello,

I just wonder about the 90 % threshold of public debt which usually induces a GDP growth slowdown.

In the latest working paper from April this is defined as 'public debt'. Correct me if I am wrong, but the net public debt is around 68 % for the U.S.(and forecasted to rise to about mid-70s within a year or two and then stabilize).

However, America's gross debt is now over 100 %.

Which measure should be used? And can gross debt be used too for this? The term used in the working paper from April was 'public debt' - not net public debt.

I would be very happy if there was some kind of clarification on this as googling have not made me wiser!

_______________________________________________________________________________

Yes it is gross debt, which for the US is above the 90% threshold. This is the longest time series beginning in 1790. It is central (federal government), so it does not include state debt and government sponsored enterprises, which now include the two mortgage giants best Carmen

Carmen M. Reinhart Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow Peterson Institute for International Economics 1750 Massachussetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20036-1903 tel. 202-454-1325 fax. 202-659-3225 creinhart@piie.com http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~creinhar/ www.carmenreinhart.com

_______________________________________

Wrong numbers in foreign/domestic debt ratio[edit]

This article from gao.gov: http://gao.gov/assets/650/649848.pdf , states that about 5 % of the debt is from foreign investors, on Page 18. But the wikipedia article says around 40%. The sources to this page are from the banks of the lending countries, and I would say that the US have more credible numbers, than China and Taiwan.

It's best to make that amount a cross reference. It is too hard for Wikipedians to update changing numbers in multiple places. 40% is about right in 2013.

Introduction Text[edit]

Hey, I do not know a better word, but in the first paragraph right on the start of the article (paragraph? really? dictionary is stupid or?!) at the end there is written:

On June 30, 2015, debt held by the public was $13.08 trillion or about 74% of the previous 12 months of GDP.

This is the "public debt", but we are in the National Debt article, this sentence is very... confusing for persons who have no idea what is public and what is national debt. The public debt at the Date was I would say already far over 18 trillion dollar and over 100% of the GDP. Right now we have national debt to GDP ratio according to the US Debt Clock: 103.9855% GDP debt (means whole US economy, everything what is produced, done, consumed and so on in a whole year would not be enough to pay off the debt, if the state would "shutdown", no lights, no electricity on the street, nothing, if every cent would go to debt for a whole year... If the US would be a European Country with the common problems of South-Eastern European States (Most of these are today seperated states which were created after the Balkan War, which the younger people, okay I'm young too, lets say people under 20 years old can not remember anything of any news reports or so about the Balkan War and the European and US intervention (back than the World was okay, China became oil net importer in 1993, Soviet Union just had fallen down after it carried the whole almost puppet-states, with the East-German being the best (I talked to my mother, born in Poland, and I have some family still living in today very west Poland, meaning less than 100 kilometers air distance to the German Border (which is unguarded since January or May 2004, I think May 2004, "clicks", is it military or do you really can say it to a civilian?!) problem: there is no direct route to the Border, since the border is the "Odra" (river) you have to drive north, away from us (air distance) and than in the former "Frankfurt (an der Oder)" (Frankfurt (on the Odra) to seperate from the 10-times larger city of Frankfurt in West-Germany with the highest financial buildings and I think there is the main German stock, like the NYMEX in New York, DAX it is called...

anyway I think the US CAN do it and handle it somehow without an deflation, which often occurs before the real inflation begins, and with a very large inflation ("Hyperinflation"), in this case the debt would be away without doing anything further, but it will not happen to the us dollar, the Zimbabwe-Dollar had numbers which I can not translate (since 1 billion in English is 1 "Milliarde" in German for example), it was something with 15 or 16 numbers, first two where 92 and I think followed by 12 or 14 zeros... this was the rate in PER CENT (!). It was the heaviest Inflation known or in "newer history", would be the easiest way for the US Goverment, but it would also make the rich people poor.

See here I found it:

During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent in mid-November 2008.

In 2009, Zimbabwe stopped printing its currency, with currencies from other countries being used Over the course of the five-year span of hyperinflation, the inflation rate fluctuated greatly. At one point, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe predicted that it would reach 1.5 million percent. In June 2008 the annual rate of price growth was 11.2 million percent. The worst of the inflation occurred in 2008, leading to the abandonment of the currency. The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid-November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month. This resulted in US$1 becoming equivalent to the staggering sum of $Z2,621,984,228,675,650,147,435,579,309,984,228

"COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 spendings" sub-heading[edit]

Other than the spelling error ('spendings' instead of 'spending,' maybe non-native English or bot submission?), the article referenced as evidence has been updated & also doesn't support the statements present (references May report not included in article released in April and updated in June, numerical totals of expected spending are different). This isn't adding anything meaningful & doesn't promote any embellishment like a stub would. This sub-heading should be removed or reworked as a symbolic link to a separate wiki entry specifically covering the 2020 & 2021 pandemic related spending by the U.S.A.

Chart out of date[edit]

The chart, here, National debt of the United States#/media/File:U.S. Federal Net Interest as Pct GDP.png, is about 10 years old and may be easily misunderstood to be current. Recommend deletion. D wigglesworth (talk) 03:44, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It can be found in this section, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Interest_and_debt_service_costs — Preceding unsigned comment added by D wigglesworth (talk • contribs) 03:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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