"Debt Is The Slavery Of The Free" - Publilius Syrus

I emerge from studying to quickly draw our readers' attention to a recent fact noted by Bloomberg.com. "The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago."

This fact is placed in greater perspective by an additional fact: the national debt (accrued from the late 1700's until today) as of 6:30 p.m. GMT on November 24th was $10.6 trillion plus. A little more perspective: the national debt has continued to increase an average of $3.93 billion per day since late September 2007.

For more on the national debt, check out this foundation which is presided over by David Walker. Walker served as Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008. According to Walker, the "real" national debt is closer to $52.7 trillion. Considering his position within the government for the past ten years, I consider him a reliable source.

Back in September I wrote a post, to which I commented that my preferred course of action is: Let Them All Fail. In other words, do nothing (from the government's perspective). Click here to watch Peter Schiff, again on Bloomberg.com, make a similar argument in light of the fact that we are already so deeply in debt.