U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion, A Number So Large It Now Qualifies As A Weather System
The United States national debt crossed $40 trillion this week, a figure that has officially outgrown human comprehension and entered the category of things measured only by satellite.
To put it in perspective, which nobody actually wants: $40 trillion is about $117,000 per American, or roughly one used Ford F-150 per citizen, except nobody gets the truck. It is also enough to buy Canada's entire annual GDP fifteen times, though Canada has asked to be left out of this comparison, citing dignity.
The traditional response in Washington is a solemn press conference where both parties agree the debt is unsustainable, followed by a bill that adds to it. This week's version was more efficient. Nobody held the press conference. The number simply appeared, was reported for about ninety minutes, and was then displaced by a story about whether a building's facade would receive a new name on September 8.
What makes the moment genuinely counterintuitive is that the debt is no longer a political weapon. For forty years it was the reliable cudgel of whichever party was out of power. Now both parties have used it, both have grown it, and neither can raise it without the other producing a chart. It has been disarmed by mutual guilt.
Economists note the debt is only a crisis if lenders stop lending, and lenders show no sign of stopping, because the alternative places to park money include Chinese property developers, whose founder was just sentenced to life in prison.
So the $40 trillion holds. Not because it is sound, but because everyone checked the other options and quietly came back.