Sunday, June 19, 2011

The 20' Tall Wall of Debt

This article is for the "numbers people" out there.  I have written that our national debt would make a 20 foot tall wall, around the world at the equator, of dollar bills (laid end-to-end and stacked flat).  As unbelievable as this sounds, I have decided to prove the numbers.

The equator is 24,902 miles long.  With 5,280 feet in a mile, this equals 131,482,560' around the world.

A dollar bill is 6.1" long and .0043" thick.  1.97 dollar bills reach a foot in length.  233 stacked dollar bills are one inch thick.

1.97 (dollar bills) X 131,482,560' (around the world) = $259,020,643 for one lap.

$259,020,643 X 233 (number to equal 1" thick stack) = $60,351,809,120 for a 1" high wall.

$14,437,648,300,000 (U.S. debt on 6/18/11) ÷ $60,351,809,120 = 239.22"

239.22" ÷ 12" = 19.94'  (rounded to 20')

Our current U.S. national debt is equal to a wall of stacked dollar bills that would stretch around the world, at the equator, twenty feet tall!

President Obama has proposed his next budget which has an estimated deficit of $1,600,000,000,000.  If passed, this amount of spending would add another 2.2' to that 20' tall wall.

As Janet Napolitano has made her infamous statement concerning her resistance to a border wall between Arizona and Mexico, "You show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border."  Well, to the Leftists in our country, no wall is too tall for them. 

If you are having trouble wrapping your head around the 20' tall wall, maybe this will help you grasp the enormity of the debt crisis:

1,000,000 (million) seconds = 11.57 days
1,000,000,000 (billion) seconds = 31.71 years
1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) seconds = 31,710 years

If our national debt were paid off $1 per second (without any more increases and no interest), it would take 457,797 years.  But, instead of paying it off, we are adding over $1,000 per second to the total (and that is 24x7). 

Folks, WE have a problem! 

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