The US Financial Crisis in numbers one can understand: Imagine a family that makes 47,620 dollars per year. They spend $71,040, therefore putting 23,420 on a credit card. Theres already $281,560 that they already owe on credit cards, and every day $82.79 dollars is added to the credit card in interest. We talk about this in the "Trillions" and most tune out. Break it down to a point where everyone can relate.

I copied and pasted this blurb from a FB friend today. Now, I haven't troubled myself to verify the accuracy of the numbers, and honestly, it is not necessary.

We can circumvent the accuracy argument by breaking it down even further:

Our government has a certain 'income' based on tax revenue

Every year, our government spends more that it brings in in taxes.

This is possible by 'borrowing money'. They do that by selling bonds and notes; mostly to foreign governments. They could also 'just print' money, but doing so lessens the value of the total amount of money (called inflation). This has happened to a certain extent, but the bulk of our 'budget deficit' comes from borrowing.

We have hit our credit limit. Now, if you are at your kitchen table discussing your financial problems with your spouse; the conversation invariably goes to stop spending more than you make, or borrow more (open a new credit card, or otherwise increase your credit limit). Could you imagine making the decision to borrow more and go further into debt because you 'have' to maintain your standard of living? That is exactly what our congress critters are debating... raising our credit limit so that we can borrow more to maintain an untenable life style.

Yep, that'll work.