how much does the usa owe in debt?

Question

and to whom is it owed to?

Answer 1

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 18 Jul 2006 at 03:35:33 PM GMT is: $8,422,888,603,692.

That is public debt (not private debt: i.ee. doesn't count your home loan). It is owned to everyone: bond holders, other countries, etc.

Answer 2

As RJ pointed out, the current debt is over $8 trillion, and that $30,000 per American figure is roughly correct as well.

Probably the best place to learn about this issue is the Concord Coalition website (see reference).

The sustainability of the debt is dependent largely on two things:
- the financial soundness of the country (that is, people's faith that money lent to the U.S. will be repaid with adequate interest), and
- the availability of money to invest (that is, the existence of people and countries and organizations that have money to invest in us).

That latter point is very important: we are very interdependent with the rest of the world. A serious financial crisis in Asia would definitely have an impact on our economy and potentially make our debt immediately unsustainable. Deficit spending dramatically increases this risk and dependency.

Answer 3

According to a last calculation, every American is debtor to other countries to the tune of US$30,000! This may keep increasing as the trade and fiscal deficits go up every year.

Answer 4

We owe Trillions to everyone.

Answer 5

Most of it is too ourselves in the form of bonds. When interest rates plunged and the market crashed. US bonds sales quintupled as they were a great investment option.

Most of our debt is too ourselves. Funny, how noone ever publishes that.

BP

Answer 6

we owe nobody, we are owed trillions