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'The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.' -- Proverbs 22:7

According to the National Debt Clock the reported national debt currently stands at 8.349 trillion dollars. This is too large a number for most individuals to wrap their brain around, so let's put it in concrete terms.

Imagine that you were provided with an unlimited supply of $100 bills and told to begin paying off this debt at the rate of $100 per second. How long would it take?

Given that there are 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours to a day and 365 days to a year, you would have to peel off one Benjamin Franklin every second, around the clock, non-stop for 2,647 consecutive years, which means you would have to have started 641 before the birth of Christ, in approximately 641 BC.

Of course, this does not account for inflation, nor for the increase in the debt that would continue to occur while you were peeling off those $100's!

And just how quickly is the national debt growing? When George W. Bush assumed occupancy of the White House the national debt was reported at 5.728 trillion, therefore it has grown by 45.8% since.

This rate of increase is typically seen in third world countries, also known as 'banana republics.' At the rate the U.S. debt is expanding, pretty soon not a person living here will be able to afford a banana.

Here's what the growth of the national debt looks like from 1800 to the present. You will note that it was pretty much rock solid -- a flat line -- for 113 years until the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Of course, this is just a coincidence and should be ignored by the serious student of economics.

For a much larger version of this graph, click on the graph itself to visit the web site where we found it.