I didn’t know we had $43T, as a nation....where did all that money come from, and is there any left at all...??
Stroke on a key board and wa la, you can make the balance sheet say anything you want!
Say, this would make a nice trigger for the inevitable collapse too, no?
Just thinking out loud..../tin foil
It’s all paper. Imaginary.
There’s about $3.6 trillion in federal, state and local assets (tables L104 and L105 at http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1.pdf) but these are dwarfed by their respective liabilities.
As for the private sector, the U.S. National Debt Clock lists $87.4 trillion in assets, but these likewise are offset to some extent by debts. However, it’s obvious that the plaintiffs in this case are seeking to go after only federal assets, which amount to $1.378 T at the end of June 2012.
I’m no legal eagle but I don’t think suits of this sort are limited by known assets. That is, if I have a net worth of $500K, that wouldn’t stop a lawyer from suing me for $3 million if he could demonstrate I did that amount of damage to his client in a car wreck, for example. I may declare bankruptcy, which would inhibit collection of an award, but per se, the fact that I don’t have the means to pay the amount they are suing me for doesn’t stop the lawsuit from going forward etc.