the net debtor quote you use is not marked to market. That is most US owned assets were bought decades ago but are still on the books at purchase value while most foreign assets were purchased more recently.
A mark to market guestimate based on income flows from assets, suggests the US to be a net debtor by about 500 billion which is still bad, just not as bad as you indicated. It also means the we consumed all the assets we ammassed after wwII when we were the only surviving manufacturing country and are now in bad shape.
Fine analysis. Tip: speaking as a trader, never waste your time arguing against gloom-and-doomers, especially if you propose -- as you evidently do -- to employ hard fact and, gasp, logical argument.
I'm not Pollyanna by a long chalk, but the **old** assumptions of the American economy are no longer valid, haven't been for some time, and (if possible, given the state of the American non-education system) continuous adaptation had better become the modus operandi of the American citizen. The more quickly that this can be accomplished in broad, the better for both the citizen and the nation.