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The U.S. national debt reached $20 trillion for the first time ever last Friday after President Trump signed a bipartisan bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months.
While at Camp David, Mr. Trump, with the stroke of his presidential pen, increased the statutory debt last Friday by approximately $318 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Before the bill's completion, the U.S. debt was sitting around $19.84 trillion.
The legislation allowed the Treasury Department to start borrowing again immediately after several months of using "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default. The bill passed last Thursday 80-17 in the Senate and in the House 316-90 on Friday. Around $15 billion in emergency funding for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts was attached to the borrowing measure.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-hits-historic-20-trillion-mark/
[That works out to just shy of $62,000 per American. --Ed.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (1 child)
Why not something useful, like a potable water standard, or a Clean Air Standard? Can you imagine? "This Federal Reserve Note is exchangeable for the current market valuation of clean air." See? Gold buggish, and environmental, all roled into one! All bitcoin gives you is hot air coming off the cooling systems on those mining rigs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:51PM
Potable water will work, at least in the jurisdictions where there is an Owner to take ownership of the water that falls from the sky. We can't have the serfs collecting it in barrels and then thinking they may employ filtration, boiling, or other techniques to make it potable. As long as every serf is beholden to an Owner for potable water, this is fine.
Same idea with clean air. In fact, if we designate Owners to the winds that blow across different jurisdictions, that would create the kind of framework we need. Then the only source of clean air for the serfs would be an Owner.
That being said, I recommend Druidia Air™ In-a-Can™.