Comment by scarmig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarmig | Hacker News Reader

Not a particularly useful exercise. Imagine 100 years from now we've maintained the same debt level. This graph will show just as much information (big numbers are big!) as it does now, but the analytical value of it (if it exists now) will obviously be totally dissipated, as we'll be an order of magnitude richer.

A better comparison would be to take a single person, and put the per capita amount of debt in $100 bills next to them. If you want to get really histrionic, do it with a baby. Still, it won't come up past the ankles (around $15,000).

This isn't a small amount, but at the same time it's not the end of the world. My college loans come out to that amount, and I barely notice paying them monthly.

It's equivalent to having a mortgage-sized to around five times your annual income. An annual income that typically grows 2.5% a year and comes with a machine that prints out money whenever you need it.

Edit: typo in Google search, it's more like $50k than $15k. So a bit worse than that analysis would suggest.

A better comparison would be to take a single person, and put the per capita amount of debt in $100 bills next to them. If you want to get really histrionic, do it with a baby. Still, it won't come up past the ankles (around $15,000).

More like $45k.

Yeah, left off the tens (of trillions) digit when I calculated it.

Just use the debt clock http://www.usdebtclock.org/

It shows $46,571 per citizen and, more importantly, $129,902 per tax payer.

Also note - $1,026,647 unfunded liabilities per tax payer.

Unfunded liabilities over long periods of time should be indexed for inflation: they shrink. this is why it's totally absurd to throw around the unfunded liabilities figures like they're meaningful. In 100 years, at 3% inflation, $1,026,647 will be worth $53,419 2010 dollars. Obviously those liabilities are paid out over time, so that's not a proper indexed figure, but it does give a point of reference.

You're mistaken. Unfunded liabilities are a net present value calculation that factors in a discount rate. They take inflation into account.

"An annual income that typically grows 2.5%"

If you're lucky enough to work at a company that does actually have a policy of CPI pay increases every year.

Of all the companies I've worked for (7), only 1 did.

As I can't be the only one: CPI is the Consumer Price Index. Basically how much what you pay for something will change over time. (if I understood correctly)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Price_Index

The CPI (or variants thereof) is also the only way to reasonably define an objective-measure-based "inflation" in a fiat currency system.

Or any type of currency.

Of those 7 companies, only one gave raises?

(yes I realize that you are thinking about keeping up with inflation, but my point is that that's irrelevant for the point the grandparent is making)

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