Thought #7                                                                                                                                                                              January 2009
Author: Bill Thurston

What are all the Pieces of our Public Debt?

Have you ever seen what you owe as a United States Citizen? It's quite hard to find but here it is in the attached Excel Spreadsheet. I will give a quick explanation of how to interpret the information.

1. Each item listed in our public debt is a U.S. Treasury Security. What are U.S. Treasury Securities?

The U.S. Treasury issues securities to raise the money needed to operate the federal government and to re-finance its debt. All of these securities are either marketable securities or nonmarketable securities.

2. What are marketable and nonmarketable securities?

You can buy and sell U.S. Marketable Securities in the financial marketplace. Examples are Treasury bills, notes, bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

You can buy and sell U.S. Non-Marketable Securities but you must buy them from the U.S. (you are the registered owner) and you must sell them back to the U.S. government. Examples are U.S. Savings Bonds.

3. What are all those government account series securities???

It's fun and maybe scary to look at all these securities. What are these???
Disgorgement Penalty Amount Held for Investment (row 21) $4 billion
Custodial Tribal Fund (row 25) ~$1/2 billion
Kuukpik Alaska Escrow Fund (row 30)
Gifts, Central Intelligence Agency (row 41)
South Dakota Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat Restoration Trust Fund (row 109)
Russian Leadership Development Trust Fund (row 140)

4. There are about 150 of these GAS (government account series) securities. You should scan through them at least once.

5. Notice that about half of our debt is in GAS securities.

6. Note that our debt is about $10 trillion and our countries wages (GDP) is about $13 trillion.

7. If you want to do further research on this subject, go to http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/2008/2008_sep.htm
Choose "Entire MSPD".

Enjoy.