[Lazamataz]

According to the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26, which the Treasury released this afternoon, the federal debt has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 70 straight days.

Curiously, this happens to be the maximum number you can represent in a 64 bit signed integer variable.^*

Therefore, it is merely a computer variable capacity problem, not that the number is stuck.

^*The actual maximum of a 64 bit signed integer is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.... but it was too good a joke to miss.

[shineon]

Why used a signed int? Are you suggesting this number could ever go negative? : )

[topher]

Your computer math is bad...

2**10 x 2**10 x 2**10 > 10**9
1024 x 1024 x 1024 > 1,000,000,000

Now that is not even 32 bits

So 2 ** 60 (just 60 bits) > (10 ** 9) * (10 ** 9) = 10 ** 18

If you count the digits, then you 5 digits(billions) + 9 (hundreds of millions) + 2 (cents).

This is only 16 digits.

There are 18 digits in 2 to the 60th (2 ** 60) (at least).