Ice Cream Cones and iPhones

Have you ever seen anyone eat more ice cream cones than our current president?  Buffett must have given him a lifetime of free ones at DQ for all the free money the tax payers were forced to give him.


New national debt data: It's growing about $3 million a minute, even during his vacation

Swallow all liquids in your mouth before reading any further. 

Updated numbers for the national debt are just out: It's now $14,639,000,000,000.

When Barack Obama took the oath of office twice on Jan. 20, 2009, CBS' amazing number cruncher Mark Knoller reports, the national debt was $10,626,000,000,000.

That means the debt that our federal government owes a whole lot of somebodies including China has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days. That's the fastest increase under any president ever.

Remember the day the Democrat promised to close the embarrassing Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility within one year? That day the national debt increased $4,247,000,000. And each day since that the facility hasn't been closed.

Same for the day in 2009 when Obama flew all the way out to Denver to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill that was going to hold national unemployment beneath 8% instead of the 9.1% we got today anyway? Another $4,247,000,000 that day. And every day since, even Obama golfing and vacation days.

Same sum for the day Obama flew Air Force One nearly four hours roundtrip to Columbus, Ohio for a 10-minute speech about how well the stimulus was working in the politically crucial Buckeye state. Ohio's unemployment rate just jumped to 9% from 8.8% anyway.

Or last week's three-day Midwestern tour in the president's new $1.1 million Death Star bus? National debt went up $16,988,000,000 while he rode around speaking and buying ice cream cones.

Numbers with that many digits are hard to grasp, even for a Harvard head. So, let's put it another way:

One billion seconds ago Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his two terms and George W. Bush's baseball collection was still on the shelves in the Austin governor's office.

The nation's debt increased $4.9 trillion under President Bush too, btw. But it took him 2,648 days to do it. Obama will surpass that sum during this term.

Now, how to portray a trillion, or 1,000 billions. One trillion seconds ago much of North America was still covered by ice sheets hundreds of feet thick. And the land was dotted by only a few dozen Starbuck's.

Obama is saying yes, we can get control of the national debt. But ominously every time he says that he adds that trillions of dollars in infrastructure repairs are badly needed across the country. And with interest rates so low, according to the thinking on Obama's planet, now is an excellent time to borrow even more money.

So, it looks like not too long before Americans learn what comes after 1,000 trillions.

It's quadrillion. But for Bernanke's sake, please don't tell anyone in Washington

From Mike Krieger:
The above article talks about how the U.S. debt is rising at a pace of $3 Million per minute!  I ask a rhetorical question, would any of you reading this "give" 5 minutes of their day in order to audit Ft. Knox and West Point?  Are each and every one of you raising your hands?  I bet it dinn't take 5 seconds for every one of you to raise your hands.  There is a significance to "5 minutes", can you guess what it is?  At $3 Million per minute it takes 5 minutes to reach $15 Million which if you have thought ahead of me is THE exact amount that the government says it would cost for an audit of our Gold reserves!  "They" don't want to spend this $15 Million because "they" are being "fiscally responsible".
  IF the Gold was there, we would have audits EACH and every year with government officials patting themselves on the back with the results, hell it would probably become a national holiday!  But no, we don't have an annual audit and have not had one since 1956, anyone with any common sense would conclude that the Gold is not there...PERIOD
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Look at what happened to Sprint Nextel's stock price on the iPhone anouncement.



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GDP PER CAPITA: See What Countries Have Really Suffered (And Gained) Since The Recession

 Real GDP per person is a figure far more real to the average citizen than GDP growth per quarter, especially in countries with growing immigrant populations like Canada and the United States. So, using this figure, The Economist made a chart to show how countries have been recovering since Q4 2007.
If you take a look below, you'll see that the real GDP per person in the U.S. is still down 4% from pre-recession levels. In China and India, it has jumped 35% and 22% respectively. Of the G7 countries, Germany is the only one that has made it to pre-recession levels.
Now here's the really painful part.
If you look at the GDP per person growth rate ten years before the financial crises, and compare it to the growth rate now, the picture looks even gloomier for the West.  In those terms even Germany has yet to catch up, and the U.S. GDP per person has fallen 10% below trend.
Add that U.S. growth shortfall up, and it comes to a cumulative loss of $14 trillion -- $13,000 per person.