posted March 27, 2008 04:37 PM            

quote:

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One thing, this chart doesn't go back far enough to pick up the Johnson years...or the Carter years or the Truman years or the Roosevelt years. I always wonder when I see information seemingly targeted to produce a desired result.

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Carter years are there.

For the charts you're looking for, look here:
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
http://www.ontheissues.org/AskMe/NatDebt.htm

posted March 27, 2008 05:20 PM            

Thanks for the charts. What I found is that sites 1 & 3 didn't adjust for inflation.

Site 2 provided a chart of debt v GDP so inflation wouldn't matter in that calculation.

However, inflation is a definite factor when attempting to construct a chart tied to the dollar...over years.

For instance, using 1913 as the baseline...when a dollar was worth a dollar; we find that it now takes...in 2006 dollars...it took $20.18 in 2006 dollars to buy what $1 bought in 1913.

To be meaningful and not misleading, discussions and charts of the debt over time must be adjusted for inflation.

Not that I'm arguing the debt is not going up in adjusted dollars. I'm not because I believe it is and though the GDP is going up too, the debt is still a problem that needs to be addressed.

Destruction of the value of the currency is always a problem when paper currencies are printed at will..by whom ever the printing authority happens to be and are not fully backed by gold or silver.

Just as an aside, this is what was predicted about what would happen if a central bank ever gained control over the issuance of paper money in the United States. What was predicted has come true and can be traced to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That date tracks perfectly with the destruction of the value of the paper dollar as a circulating medium of exchange.

"If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash."
--- President George Washington

"It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the history of the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency."
--- President Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 5, 1836)

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
--- Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."
--- Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln stated,

"The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme perogative of Government, but is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest."