Well, it’s official: as of the end of July, 2009, our national debt is up by another $180 billion. That brings us to a total bill of $11,666,485,985,008. That’s eleven trillion, six hundred and sixty six billion, four hundred and eighty five million, nine hundred and eighty five thousand, and eight dollars.

And I’m pretty sure that there are a few cents involved too.

Can anyone even begin to imagine the magnitude of U.S. debt? I nearly faint when I look at my monthly mortgage statement. My mind cannot fathom much more than a million dollars, and on a good day I can kind of envision what a billion dollars might look like. But a trillion? Or, eleven trillion?

We really took on a lot of debt when we decided to go to war with Afghanistan. From the start of the war on Afghanistan to the concurrent war with Iraq, our national debt surged from $5.7 to $10.6 trillion. However, one can’t blame the Bush administration for everything. Since the commencement of the Obama presidency, U.S. debt has increased even more, to nearly a trillion extra dollars in less than a year’s time.

Don’t forget that the government not only owes money, it also pays interest on the money borrowed. Treasury bills and bonds are some of the major ways by which the U.S. sells off its debt to investors, paying them monthly or yearly interest. And, although the interest rates on Treasury bills and bonds are pretty low, all those trillions of dollars in debt do add up: for just the month of July 2009, the United States owed over 19 billion dollars ($19,812,486,187.83) in interest. Ouch! 

What makes things even worse is that, because the U.S. has so much debt, it can no longer rely on the American populace to soak it all up. Foreign countries have increasingly been backing U.S. debt, and today own about 29% of our deficit. Our biggest creditors are China ($801.5 billion), and Japan ($677.2 billion), followed by the Caribbean ($194.8 billion) and, ironically, the Oil Exporters ($192.9 billion).

While we spend our cash on living and defending "the American Way", we make this possible through our reliance on foreign funds. Maybe it’s just me, but such a scenario seems like a huge exercise in hypocracy and ignorance. Not to mention the fact that, whn you owe anybody money, you end up doing certain "favors" for them in return. It is no coincidence that much of our consumer goods originate in China, I’m sure. 

The average American citizen is hard-pressed to see a good reason to pay his or her mortgage statement on time, or to pay off student loans, when he or she observes how the U.S. government deals with its own debt. Printing more money, and then taking on even more debt, is not the answer. However, one can definitely see the advantages of eventual inflation with regards to old debt: if I had a little money-making machine in my basement, I too could tackle my debt with ease. Of course, the money I continued to print would be worth less and less over time, but at least I’d have paid off my debt- everyone else’s worthless dollars be damned.

Interestingly enough, foreign countries are catching on to our schemes. The U.S. is finding it increasingly difficult to find new lenders to back its burgeoning debt. The time may be nigh when we will need to pay back our debt. And also, if the U.S. government continues printing more dollars, making cash appear out of thin air, the country may get to the point of being completely insolvent (i.e., bankrupt). 

For a country that prides itself on its freedom, we certainly don’t set the best example when it comes to freeing ourselves from debt.