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During the month of February—as President Barack Obama was warning Americans they would see dramatic effects in their lives if “sequestration” of some planned federal spending kicked in—the federal government’s debt climbed by $253.5 billion. That one-month increase in the debt was nearly six times as much as the $44 billion in spending cuts the Congressional Budget Office estimates will take place in all of fiscal 2013 as a result of sequestration. …

This one's rich: “The combination of a massively expanded central bank balance sheet and an unsustainable public debt trajectory is a mix that has the potential to substantially reduce the flexibility of monetary policy,” the economists write. “This mix could induce a bias toward slower exit or easier policy, and be seen as the first step toward fiscal dominance. It could thereby be the cause of longer-term inflation expectations and raise the risk of inflation overall.” There is no flexibility and it is the direct and proximate consequence of Congress and The Adminstration ignoring the fundamental realities of arithmetic --...

Middle-Class Wealth Protection, Post-Fiscal Cliff By Jean F. Drew I don’t know about you, but I’m a lifelong, middle-class working stiff who has managed to accumulate a certain modest amount of “wealth” designated to be sent to the future, to supply my support and lifestyle needs when I am “old” and no longer have employment income. I’m speaking of my 401(k)s and IRAs. The way I have assets deployed in these accounts very likely will need to change, given the absolutely predictable outcome of the much-hyped impending fiscal cliff. At least, that is my supposition. Consider: We get the fiscal...

Wow! We’ll soon cross Sixteen Trillion Dollars in Federal Debt! S-i-x-t-e-e-n T-r-i-l-l-i-o-n D-o-l-l-a-r-s. That’s a lot of vote buying even for Washington. Is this ruin? Have we indentured our children into servitude? Solomon warned borrowers will be slaves to their lenders. Add $120 plus trillion in unfunded forthcoming liabilities and, well, we’re doomed. Yet, as significant as this looks, and sixteen trillion of anything cannot be insignificant, the economic repercussions are the least of America’s worries. We still finance this cheaply. Rates on Treasuries remain low. Moreover, America endures as the world’s preeminent economic engine. Obviously, debt weighs heavily on...

The per capita federal debt is $31,000 growing. Much of Europe and many American states are facing practical bankruptcy. As the creditworthiness of the United States and many states is been downgraded, the cost of simply servicing the existing debt will rise. Add to these woes vast unfunded entitlements and money simply created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve System, and it is hard to see how even very aggressive Reaganomics can save us. Government is so far in debt that simply cutting spending less is not enough, and raising taxes is foolishness. We need to dramatically increase...

y DAVID M. WALKER, The Fiscal Times December 30, 2011 In Washington, if you want to make something public while minimizing press attention, you should release it on a Friday. The current Administration topped that by issuing the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. Government, which included the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) related independent audit report on the Friday before Christmas when the public was focused on the holiday season and key policymakers were either headed out of town or already gone. The report was simply posted on the Internet and provided to the press on request and without any...

On September 14, 2011, three House Democrats introduced a bill to eliminate the debt ceiling to allow the Treasury to borrow money at will and without limit. Rep. Moran, one of the bills co-sponsors, said the debt limit is a 'danger' to our county and Republicans are using it as a political weapon. “The debt limit is an unnecessary and counterproductive legislative hurdle that has proved to be both an ineffective means of controlling deficits and a danger to this country’s standing in the financial markets,” Moran stated. He added that it has been "weaponized" by Republicans.

The Debt Crisis: Why There Is a Stalemate By Jean F. Drew Ask just about any person on the street nowadays what the U.S. “debt crisis” is all about, and he’ll probably tell you it’s about “raising the debt limit.” He has had it drilled into his head — by the Obama Administration, the Democrat Party, the labor unions, and their various enablers in the “official” media — that the international credit reporting agencies threaten to downgrade sovereign U.S. debt from Triple A to a lesser — and costlier — grade because Congress has failed to increase the debt ceiling...

See [also] the history of the debt limit since 1980. As of the end of March, the federal government owed $14.27 trillion to a wide variety of holders of U.S. Treasury securities. This graphic depicts who those creditors are and the amount they have bought in treasuries. Click on the arrows next to a category to expand its subcategories. All amounts are in billions of dollars. [Click on link above to view]

If Congress doesn't lift the debt ceiling by mid-May, the sky won't fall, at least not right away. The Treasury has several ways to forestall a federal default. Yet today's massive deficits limit how long these measures can be used. The national debt is expected to hit the $14.3 trillion legal ceiling by May 16. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has urged Congress to act to avoid a government default that would have "catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades."

Reuters reports that the US Treasury has informed lawmakers it needs a $2 trillion debt limit increase to operate... until the end of 2012. Better stated, this is 112% of US GDP (which will soon be declining). This is precisely as Zero Hedge speculated. We hope PIMCO will be swayed soon enough to buy all this extra debt about to start coming down Geithner's conveyor chute. But yes, the Fed will most certainly not be needed to monetize this extra debt: Japan, Europe and Libya have it covered. That said, we don't know if Libyan rebels will have the capacity...

Question for those of you concerned about the size of federal debts and deficits: Would you endorse a plan which would add another five or six trillion dollars to the federal debt over the next decade while increasing Uncle Sam’s annual expenditures by $1.1 trillion? If so, you’re in luck. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently unveiled just such a plan. Naturally, Democrats immediately denounced Ryan’s plan as “radical.” They think the increases in spending and debt should be much larger. It shows how far the goalposts have been moved in American politics that adding multi-trillion-dollars of debt...

As the Obama administration prepares to finance a Fiscal Year 2011 budget deficit expected to top $1.6 trillion, the American public is largely unaware that the true negative net worth of the federal government reached $76.3 trillion last year. That figure was five times the 2010 gross domestic product of the United States and exceeded the estimated gross domestic product for the world by approximately $14.4 trillion.

"The country could, actually, absorb some more debt in order to get the economy going," George Soros told Bloomberg television over the weekend. Soros said the U.S. should spend money on building infrastructure or improving producitivity.

(CNSNews.com) - The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal made by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September. The debt was $14.2101 trillion on March 30, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and $14.2642 on April 7.

Throughout history the rise and fall of empires isn't slow or cyclical, as we like to think, but arrhythmic...it mostly happens very, very suddenly. America is a superpower on the edge of chaos, according to economic historian and author Niall Ferguson. U.S. debt levels, he says, and its unwillingness to address the problem, has put it in the same category as other great empires which have collapsed throughout the ages. Ferguson argues the world is changing. There's the rise of authoritarian China as a super-power; a Keynesian president leading a weakened United States; the re-emergence of democratic India as a...

At 39 years old, Senator-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) is about to become the youngest member of the United States. He may also be the most conservative. In a Subway Series interview with ABC News, Senator-elect Lee staked-out a no-compromise, hard-line stand on the national debt that may soon put him at odds with his own party leadership. Lee told us that when Congress is asked to vote early next year on raising the national debt limit – a usually routine vote that allows the government to borrow the money needed to finance annual budget deficits – he will vote no....

I've been madly in love with Paul McCartney ever since I was a little girl. He's the only creative hero who's stood the test of time for me, because as his music grew less magical, his personal life grew more so. Alone in the rock firmament, he adored his wife, raised healthy uncrazy kids, picked himself up after the public embarrassment of a disastrous marriage and energetically recommitted himself to music, his fans and new love. What a man! And now for the first time in all these decades, he's made me quite sick. A man who's commanded a megaphone...

Self-execution rule is right! The latest Fox News Poll was just released and it reflects the degree of anger and disenfranchisement Americans feel about their federal government, spurred on by the Obamcare poll that very few want. And the closer we get to the final vote that anger accelerates. Below are some key findings:

<p>China continued selling U.S. Treasurys in January, although it remained the largest foreign holder following revisions that showed it never actually lost the top spot to Japan, the Treasury Department said.</p> <p>Overall, foreigners were modest net buyers of long-term U.S. financial assets in January, according to the monthly Treasury International Capital report, known as TIC.</p>