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Saturday, March 12, 2016

United States Net Worth

A lot of the economic measures of the United States, I look up with very few google searches. In fact, most of the figures are posted, up to date, at usdebtclock.org. It is a great resource to find our total government debt, largest government expenditures, debt to GDP ratio, and budget deficit.

The figures that disturb me a lot is our total debt of $19 trillion and that we are still running budget deficits of almost $500 billion yearly. However there is one figure that is not present on the website.

What is the net worth of the United States? We run budget deficits every year. Those deficits go towards the total government debt. But what is the total United States debt?

A quick google search for Net Worth of the United States brings up a Wikipedia page named Financial position of the United States.

The data is only current as of Q1 2014 but the total assets of the US equal $270 trillion while the total liabilities of the US equal $146 trillion. This leaves a net worth of $124 trillion. Upon learning this fact, I feel a little bit better. And to a certain extent, I could understand why leftists don't care about economic matters are cool with spending towards infinity.

However, the sigh of relief was just a gut instinct. The net worth doesn't include the $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities that will come due in the future. Subtract those liabilities out and the net worth of the United States is only $46 trillion.

I'm reminded of a quote from Terminator 3. You didn't stop judgment day. You only delayed it.

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