Cointelegraph Team
Cointelegraph
The national debt of the United States has crossed $24 trillion for the first time in history as Donald Trump’s presidency adds $4 trillion in four years.
According to figures from online monitoring resource Trading Economics, the tally now stands at $24.018 trillion as of April 9. The amount is equal to $72,888 for each U.S. citizen, or $193,805 per taxpayer.
US massive debt mountain mushrooms
The almost incomprehensible size of national debt comes weeks after the Federal Reserve began an unprecedented money printing program.
Providing $6 trillion of liquidity, the Fed led responses to the financial impact of the coronavirus crisis, which is in turn forecast to make U.S. unemployment hit 13%.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, for scale, $6 trillion alone is the same as the entire gross domestic product, or GDP, of the U.S. in 1990.
US national debt 1942-present. Source: Trading Economics
In stark contrast to the deteriorating health of the fiat economy, Bitcoin (BTC) has managed to weather the storm without any bailout from the government. At press time, BTC/USD traded up 2.1% versus the start of 2020, at $7,350.
By comparison, for example, the S&P 500 is down 14.9% year to date, while WTI oil has crashed by almost 58%.
According to data from JPMorgan quoted by Bloomberg, COVID-2019 could cost the world a total of $5.5 trillion in lost output.
Schiff: Trump is “draining the nation”
Commenting on the debt mountain, meanwhile, gold bug Peter Schiff showed a rare unity with Bitcoin supporters in noting the dangerous pace that Trump was inflating it.
“He will add more debt in 4 years than Bush did in 8,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
“If reelected he will add more debt in 8 years than Bush & Obama did in 16. Instead of draining the swamp, he is draining the nation.”
That “swamp” is already spawning a mass exodus into gold and an associated crisis in gold markets, pro-Bitcoin TV host Max Keiser warned last week. This weekend, meanwhile, he suggested that it was morally irresponsible to sell BTC for what he called “fiat debt coupons” — paper banknotes.
Bitcoin has also seen fresh backing from Robert Kiyosaki, author of the popular book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” who this week argued that using it allows one to reside “outside the system” of fiat money.
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