Truly extraordinary figures....

Jessica Irvine had an interesting article yesterday in the business section of The Herald titled 'US carries a big stick, and an even bigger debt'.

In the artcile she often quotes from a new book titled Empire of Debt:The Rising of an Epic Financial Crisis by American financial journalists Bill Bonner and Addison Wigger.

Some extracts from the article:

"Bonner and Wiggin have done the figures. The total value of assets in the US is about $50,000 billion($67,000 billion). Current debt stands at about $US37,000 bilion. Adding in the present value of future government liabilities and their conclusion is grim:America is broke. Busted. Bankrupt. It couldn't pay its debts even if it wanted to."

"Microsoft's Bill Gates has admitted he finds the situation 'a little scary'. 'We're in unchartered waters when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt' he said last year.

America's second richest man, investment guru Warren Buffett lost $US900 million last year for his staunch belief that the US dollar is set for terminal decline.
Buffet has been betting against the US dollar for years.
'That's a long term position' he has said. 'I have no idea what currencies are going to do next week or next month or even next year. I think I know over time.'

It is impossible to predict when the US empire's debt bubble may burst.
But if the history of empires holds true, and it does, we're all going to wish we'd paid a bit more attention to the dommsayers."


Interesting article, methinks an 'unwinding' of the US 'empire' would have massive global affects, not for years but possibly for decades to generations.

What do you think?

 

I did see an article on the weekend which discussed the chinese economy overtaking the US economy in 2006.

Can't say i know my economics inside out, but one would think this would not help the situation with future investment directed to China, the ongoing drain of the Iraq/Afganistan committments for the US Government.