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Comment by bugsy | Hacker News Reader

That's not the consumer debt figure. Consumer debt, which is credit cards and other unsecured, mostly high interest debt, is $2399 billion.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/default.h...

That comes to $2399 billion / 307 million people = $7814 per person.

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Sounds a bit more accurate, but pretty much just as scary. If you add in your share of the national debt, it gets really scary. Politicians likely won't have the backbone to deal with making cuts/raising taxes so the likely outcome is sustained inflation.

On the plus side, the majority of the national debt is owed to people and bodies within the country; in essence, the government representing the people has borrowed from those people on behalf of those people.

Just to give the full number the average Californian owes $132,655 with National Debt, State Debt and Consumer Debt (including mortgage, car, etc...)

U.S. Debt: http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

California Debt:http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-califo...

Consumer Debt: http://www.youngmoney.com/get_out_of_debt/california-leads-n...

(Though that doesn't include the estimated $1,012,540 per citizen in unfunded liabilities)

Let's not conflate "unfunded liabilities" with actual current debt load though. While both dollar figures, they are wildly different in nature.

I specifically didn't include them in the total for just that reason

Yes, but when Social Security money suddenly doesn't show up for a whole generation of people depending on it to retire, and in many cases no longer able bodied to work, the turmoil will be plenty upsetting.

National Debt has become an imaginary number. I don't owe a cent on it. Let the banksters pillage the economy and try to collect on a nation of bankrupt people with rifles.

It's as serious as a heart attack. Everyday billions of dollars, which represent immense man power and dedication, are spent in pursuit of the unearned. That means the goods and services you buy today are more expensive because every dollar you spend is competing with all that borrowed money. That alone is plenty bad.

I won't even begin to talk about the repercussions of bankruptcy (or runaway inflation) that you shrug off. Modern day Greece, pre-WWII Germany, Zimbabawe aren't/weren't tourist destinations for a reason.

While consumer debt does include mortgages, the term covers about any other form of credit given to consumers. Consumer debt includes secured debt as well, such as auto loans and certain kinds of household goods such as furniture, appliances, etc.

Looking at the figures you linked, you've got $800.5b in REVOLVING debt, which is the unsecured, credit-card type debt people are really worried about. That works out to $6,971 per household (114,825,428 households) or about $2,600 per capita.

The non-revolving, or installment debt, typical of auto, furniture, and appliance loans, is about twice as large, at $1,598b, or $13,916 per household and $5,708 per capita.

Nowhere near as bleak as they'd like to paint it.

If I spend N thousand dollars on my credit card per month and pay it off every month, does my contribution to revolving debt show up as $N thousand, $N/2 thousand, or zero?

If they track it by using consumer credit reporting bureaus, they track your balance as the amount shown on your last bill, regardless of if it was paid in full or not. If that is the case, I would assume a decent chunk of this is debt that no interest is being paid on as well.

Very interesting point, this might be almost nothing at all then.

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