Until last month, the clock had enough digits to measure US debt levels
The US government’s debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiralling figure.
The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount.
The board was erected to highlight the $2.7 trillion level of debt in 1989.
The clock’s owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt.
Douglas Durst, son of the late Seymour Durst - the clock’s inventor - hopes to replace the Manhattan clock with its lengthier replacement early next year.
For the time being, the Times Square counter’s electronic dollar sign has been replaced with the extra digit required. For its part, the digital dollar symbol has been supplanted by a cheaper version - perhaps a sign of the times for the American economy. Some economists believe the $700bn bail-out plan for ailing US financial institutions could send the national debt level to $11 trillion.
It appears that the worst is yet to come from the administration y’all love to hate! I got to believe that Karl Marx is spinning in his glass aquarium tonight laughing at this century’s New Communist… GW Bush. :mrgreen:
**White House considers taking ownership stakes in private banks to deal with credit crisis **
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration is considering taking ownership stakes in a number of U.S. banks as one option it might use to deal with a serious credit crisis, an administration official said Wednesday.
This official, who spoke late Wednesday on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, said the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and get ownership shares in return.
This official said that all the new powers granted in the legislation were being considered as the administration seeks to deal with a serious credit crisis that has already caused the biggest upheavals on Wall Street in seven decades.
A decision to inject capital directly into financial institutions in return for ownership stakes would be similar to a plan announced earlier Wednesday by Britain.
So other than attacks carried out by our own citizens (whether they were militias, mormons, indians or radicals), that makes 2 attacks on the World Trade Center on US proper soil since when… the mid 1800’s and the Mexican-American War? Of course you can count other US properties… Pearl Harbor, the embassies that were attacked, USS Cole. All on foreign soil that does not have the security that we have on the mainland.
Of course in 2005 alone, there were almost 14,000 gun related homicides. Hmmm. That’s more than double both World Trade Center bombings, Pearl Harbor, USS Cole and all embassy attacks combined.
You will find wackos all over the world. We have them, other countries have them.
But the “Be Afraid” campaign that the Republican party has continually run over the last 20 years has worn thin and the public is tired of being told the Republican Party is their only salvation.
For you to equate the lawful personal ownership of guns in this country with the attack of terrorists with the stated purpose of destroying us makes me questions your reasoning skills.:roll:
And what a price we have paid for that security. By the time we finally usher Bush out of office we will have suffered losses that we as a nation will never regain in our lifetime. Obama - 08
*They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - *Benjamin Franklin
There have been periods in our history when the leadership…bipartisan…has stepped in to take care of American citizens.
Knowing that a government can only govern with the consent of those who are governed, sometimes a government has to stop feeding itself and share some of the buffet with the people who are paying for it.
Mike would have us to believe that this is called “Socialism”.
He would have had a fit in the '30s when Roosevelt used tax dollars to create government jobs to put unemployed men on the government payroll to get them out of breadlines. Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” in the late sixties would have him shivering in his britches, as well.
FDRs most famous socialistic program bearing the name of Socialism…called Social Security…still exists, today. At the time it was instituted, the average life span was 60 years and those who made it to 65 would have money to keep a roof over thier heads for their remaining few years. Today…with the life span shooting towards 80…it’s vacation money for Florida, for some. But there are still those who depend upon it to keep from a diet of cat food.
It’s very easy for people who “have” to argue that a government has no duty to those who “have not”…but the French Revolution and American Revolution has taught those who govern differently.
A government requires the consent of its citizens to stay in power and it does not acquire that for very long if it does not ensure their well being.
The consent of the citizens is what gets all Democracies in to trouble eventually.
When people make the decision to partake of the “public purse” instead of working for and planning their future a Democracy will destroy itself.
Fortunately this is a Representative Republic and not a direct Democracy.
Our leadership has willingly abandoned the principles on which this country was founded and does so to the peril of all of us.
History is replete with examples of failed Socialist states. There is still time to prevent one here but it’s beginning to look bleak.
The concept of personal responsibility is fading away as the nanny state continues to grow. Some consider this “progress” but history is unable to demonstrate that socialism can provide the impetus for each of us to be all we can be.
Mediocrity is the prevalent norm of the day as the progressives attempt to force equal outcomes in the name of fairness instead of the rewards associated with hard work and prudent living.
If Socialism reaches critical mass there will be no turning back without revolution. Our founding fathers understood this and we would be wise to read their writings and understand why they created The American Experiment.
If the world…the world, Mike…was still made up primarily of farmers and those who worked for them, the mechanical principles of the founders would still be appropriate to engage.
The world has changed and, thanks to their wisdom and progressive thinking, they founded a government that could change with the world…and in some regards…lead that change.
I have collected and read their writings. I have collected and read their writings that were both in favor and disfavor of the federal constitution. In those writings (aka The Federal Papers) you will find how many founders actually opposed the need for a federal government at all.
Their wisdom is not so much in what they thought and what they wrote…but in what they created. A system of government that did not need to be overthrown in order to keep up with the times…but one in which a very controlled revolution could take place every four years, where the old ideas could be replaced by the new, and without the shedding of blood. That was their genious.
Jim as you know the Federal government’s role was intended to be very limited and we have strayed very far from that in our desire to control the outcome of everything.
The road to Federally sponsored socialism is paved with good intentions by people who are only trying to help. I don’t question their motives only their lack of success.
This problem didn’t start yesterday but I think we are about to make a very large leap to the left that may be irreversible.
If the fifty states had been allowed to be the laboratories of freedom they should be, everyone could choose where to live and leave for “greener pastures” in other states.
Instead there is a distressing sameness brought about by Federal meddling in all things through coercion, mandates, and the ultimate tool of the Federal Purse.
We have sold our birthright for a pot of porridge.
Ken Burns, in promoting his PBS series about the Civil War a few decades ago, said it best.
Prior to the Civil War, people spoke about how “The United States are.” After the Civil War, people spoke about how “The United States is.”
The War Between the States was settled by an invasion of Federal troops into sovereign states and the ultimate triumph of that Federal government over the states…and your ideal ceased to exist at that moment.
Interestingly enough, after two years of incarceration, Jefferson Davis was mysteriously released. Only many years later was it discovered that the Cheif Justice of the Supreme Court had warned then President Johnson that an appeal of Davis’s conviction to the Supreme Court would result in an official court ruling that the Federal government had violated the constitution by invading a sovereign state. To avoid that ruling, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were never tried for treason.
The irony is how the constitution had to be violated in order to be preserved.
Jim you failed to address a single point of my post and instead gave an obscure history lesson. A majority of the founders did not support slavery, but in order to form a union of states and provide for a common defense it chose to deffer the issue to a later time.
Does this mean you are just fine with Federalism and the centralization of power?
Does it also mean that you are just fine with the Socialist progression this country is making?
