EXCERPT The CBO released a new report this week showing that the federal government’s publicly held debt would top 101% of GDP by 2021, more than the value of everything produced in this country over the course of a year. By 2035, the publicly held debt, CBO says, could top an almost unfathomable 190% of GDP. And that was the good news. The federal government actually has three different types of debt.
(1) Debt held by the public, the type of government bonds that you — or the Chinese government — might own. Growing levels of publicly held debt can drive up interest rates in the long-run, and may already be choking off interbank lending.
(2) There is “intragovernmental” debt---debt that the federal government owes itself, such as to the so-called Social Security Trust Fund. Intragovernmental debt exceeds $4.6 trillion. The good news here is that it is not projected to grow much ..... because both SSS and Medicare are already running deficits — there’s nothing left to steal.
(3) "Implicit govt debt”.......unfunded obligations of programs such as Social Security and Medicare — that is owed in benefits in excess of the amount of taxes that they expect to take in.
-- SNIP-- long read--
That’s not something one can easily read just before going to bed. I didn’t know that there was 120 trillion of anything.