U.S. Debt Visualized: How It Literally Stacks Up (GRAPHIC)

In former President Bill Clinton's first-ever State of the Union address, he announced that if America's debt were stacked in thousand dollar bills, it would "reach 267 miles" into space.

Today, the U.S. debt is $14.3 trillion and the government is currently embroiled in a fierce debate over whether to raise the allowed borrowing amount further. Stacked and bundled into one-hundred dollar bills, the national debt would be as wide and long as two football fields and as high as the Statue of Liberty, reports graphic design artist Oto Godfrey.

On his website, WTFnoway.com, Mr. Godfrey shows how the U.S. debt will literally stack up when compared to some of our greatest engineering wonders and machines.

Click on any of the pictures below to go directly to the site:

Ten Thousand dollars:

One Million Dollars:

One Hundred MIllion Dollars:

One Billion Dollars:

One Trillion Dollars:

One Trillion Dollars (Again):

15 Trillion Dollars:

114.5 Trillion Dollars:

Comments

[Clint McCain]

08:34 PM on 08/26/2011

That was a nice article with illustrations, but I've seen a professionally produced YouTube video with animated graphics at: http://youtu.be/WBxWdD9YKdY

[edva]

12:59 PM on 07/29/2011

People have food, water, shelter, the basics. These elements exist. They were not created by money. They are actually independent of money, or debt. Money and debt are superimposed over existing things, so that "ownership" by the greedy can be established. Ownership of existing things, that are "owned" in name only. A very unsustainable system. Which of course only motivates the greedy to speed up their looting, before it all collapses around them.

[Captain Motown]

11:50 PM on 08/01/2011

Edva, you should have stopped after the third toke, as your line of thinking and communication here is...............well, strange, to say the least. And 520 are tuned in on what you have to say! God help us!

[mhtowe64]

08:07 AM on 07/28/2011

Thanks Obama, all you do is bend over and take it. Instead of sitting around pointing fingers why don't you stick to what you said while you were campaigning and create this "change." I have seen very little of it....

[keng181]

01:12 AM on 07/28/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ruYfR-Ht1o.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9oKt6vT-w
two short videos about the debt ceiling and debt debate in general....
watch it....enough said

[worfff]

12:04 AM on 07/28/2011

Nice visual of the trillions next to the Twin Towers, which were demolished by people who went on to pretend to be our saviors (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). Then, pretending to keep us "safe" took our freedoms with the "patriot act", and with the same pretense, invaded countries, killing many innocents, including our own young brave troops, and ran up this ridiculous tab, that can never be paid. Oh, can imagine the love in their hearts !!!

[mbo2]

11:11 AM on 07/28/2011

hmmm, Obama could have exited Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. etc. 2 years ago

instead, you're in love with him

yep, that makes sense

[worfff]

11:18 AM on 07/28/2011

oh, you have me all wrong, i hate Obama more then i do Bush, Clinton, or old man Bush, they`re all on the same team you know.

[MadJayhawk]

10:23 PM on 07/27/2011

I am watching nice liberal woman named Alexis McGill Johnson, who is the executive director of the American Values Institute, a consortium of researchers, educators, and social justice advocates, try to defend President on Hannity. Hannity is making mincemeat out of her. It is not her fault. They are talking about the President's well-known and fully documented plan for cutting spending and increasing revenues. Ms Johnson actually said that the president's plan is to have a plan and to sit down with members of congress. She had nothing else to point to. I doubt that anyone here could do any better. It was hilarious. She is a good sport and took one for the team.

Note: Hannity is a rude obnoxious person about 95% of time that isn't worth watching. I was watching his show to see what the weasel, McCain, was saying about the spending problem. As much as I dislike Obama I think I dislike McCain even more. I absolutely hated voting for him. Obama was totally unqualified to be president, as we can see now, and McCain was almost just as unqualified in my opinion. We had a couple of nice choices didn't we - unless you believed everything Obama was lying about? I didn't believe anything he said. I bet you did.

[RetributionNow]

08:06 AM on 08/16/2011

I didn't believe anything O said during his campaign because I was a full-on Hillary supporter until she was out.

I think it's pretty obvious that the power behind the curtain who decide what's what wanted our only choices for president to be an ineffective, easily confused old man and an ineffective, inexperienced, indecisive young man. Either way the (the Men Behind the Curtain) would've won.

[quazyT]

08:49 PM on 07/27/2011

add to all this the housing bubble bust which is pretty much the fault of the liberal Democrats wish to give away the american dream to people who have yet to earn it and you only then start to see the macro view of this mess!!! plus the Tea party you misinformed Obama eunuchs keep referring to are not in complete agreement on bush's record and many many of them consider him just another RINO.. would some one PLZ start thinking for your self.. im mean good GOD people!!!

[quazyT]

08:59 PM on 07/27/2011

sry about the "add to all this" comment i was referring to a post i made just befor this one but this liberal rag of a news site did not deem it worthy of posting for some reason even thoe it was in the same vain of this one.....

[RetributionNow]

08:08 AM on 08/16/2011

the housing bust is the fault of the godless bankers.

[LeifEiriksson]

08:45 PM on 07/27/2011

This is why I support Ron Paul. Only politician with any credibility that would not enslave us with debt.

[mbo2]

11:13 AM on 07/28/2011

don't expect the libs to get behind Ron Paul, they're more wed to their entitlements than they are to their opposition to wars

,.

[Quinny]

01:54 AM on 08/03/2011

So glad I voted for Ron Paul in 2008, and will do so again in 2012.

Selah

[quazyT]

08:43 PM on 07/27/2011

SOOOOOOO funny how every one here is STILL blaming Bush for all of the debt with out even trying a little bit to give BHO any of it. Bush had... SEPT 11 and one of the largest bubble busts(dot com) in history happen on his watch, nether of which was his fault. all so the same people that called the war in Afghanistan "unjustified" were stoked and gave BHO all the credit for killing osama bin laden, which by the way would of never happened in the first place if BHO was not a complete liar and did what he said he was going to do in his campaign!!!

[Bette Henry]

07:24 PM on 07/27/2011

Sure would be nice to see this broken down on Clinton, Bush and Obama's tenure. But of course it is all Geoge Bush's fault anyway (according to Obama) at any rate!

[lambdin1]

02:22 PM on 07/27/2011

Somehow I got lost after 1 trillion dollars. Suffice it to say it is a LOT of money!

[Shawn Bailes]

02:08 PM on 07/27/2011

Legalize pot and the debt goes to zero in 20 years

[BeautifulOnDaOutside]

04:08 PM on 07/27/2011

I really don't care about the debt.

[Captain Motown]

12:03 AM on 08/02/2011

You probably don't. It takes a responsible person to care about such things.

[Steve Lives]

07:16 PM on 07/27/2011

Na, it wouldn't make much of a dent in the debt. In the short term it would probably cause a rise in debt because of all the people who would be out of work because of legalization. There are plenty of reasons pot (and in my opinion, all drugs) should be legalized and dealt with in a mature fashion, but I don't see debt reduction as one of them.

[Captain Motown]

12:10 AM on 08/02/2011

Legalize all drugs, like heroin, and deal with them in a mature fashion? Now that's rich. What's today's flavor? Crack?

[Josh Boehm]

12:18 PM on 07/27/2011

Of course the absolute amount seems high. But relative to GDP, our debt is actually pretty low. Especially for an economy with 10% unemployment.

[BeautifulOnDaOutside]

04:15 PM on 07/27/2011

The debt is almost as high as GDP. I don't consider that low. Our debt service is larger than our economy is growing. If interest rates rise any significant amount, we will be in deep trouble.

[Josh Boehm]

05:15 PM on 07/27/2011

But there have been occasions in the past where the US public debt was as high or higher than GDP. In Japan it once reached twice GDP. This whole debate centers around the notion that public debt is bad and should be reduced to a 'sustainable' level. That notion is typically based in the incorrect thinking that government debt is the same thing as household or business debt--that you owe someone.

But there's an important distinction between government debt and personal debt. The US government is the sovereign issuer of the US Dollar. No one else can legally create it. The idea that the government "owes someone" its own currency is silly... it's even sillier to think that the United States can somehow be forced into an involuntary default on its payments by some sort of financial restriction.

[Quinny]

01:58 AM on 08/03/2011

The unfunded liabilities of the US Govt. are TEN TIMES
the US GDP...if the Govt. was a private business, we would
have had a fire by now.

[rocketmanx2x3x4]

11:56 AM on 07/27/2011

Is it possible that the lending institutions lent money to America, knowing full well this debt would default eventually ? And if so, where they in their legal rights to lend this money with all that interest attached, anyway ? Seems to me this may need to be settled in some kind of world court, for unreasonable loans, and, the reasonable expectency that they could be paid back.

[wesdfs]

10:33 AM on 07/27/2011

put the clinton's back in office he fix bushes and obamas mess again- boy I miss them days- same crap when bushes dad was in office if the rich people paid there taxes like every one else we wouldn't be so deep in debt and if they made illeagle alliens pay for a temporary citenzship and tax them we could probly pay off the debt the average working guy is so burdend (and so will our kids)they aint never going to get a balanced budget,to much money is going to oil companies,immagration,ect.Or hey they should legalize drugs and sell it, it better than extortion.