A few days ago, a reader sent me a chart of the price of gold vs. the national debt.
The chart was a bit out of date so I asked Nick at Sharelynx Gold (my favorite proprietor of historical and current gold charts) if he had a similar chart. He did. And here’s the chart.
Debt and Debt Ceiling vs. Gold
click on chart for sharper image
Please note that the current debt limit is $16.699 trillion.
Debt to the Penny
Interestingly, the US Treasury website Debt to the Penny and Who Hold It shows the current public debt as 16,747,429,285,635.12 (the same as Nick shows in the above chart).
Treasury Stops Updating National Debt
You do not have to be a math genius to figure out that “debt to the penny” already exceeds the debt limit.
I asked Nick about that and he replied …
Since mid-May, “debt to the penny” hasn’t been rising. When they postponed raising the debt limit they stopped showing any increase in the debt.
We’re currently $48 billion over and have been there since May 21st or so.
I would like to know what the real figure now is but little chance of that until they raise the debt limit.
What’s the “real” national debt? No one knows at the moment.
Cheers Nick
Gold Considerably Undervalued
Given that over 4 months have passed since the Treasury stopped updating “debt to the penny”, the national debt is considerably more than $48 billion over the limit.
Finally, please take a good look at that from Sharelynx. Unless “it’s different this time” gold is rather undervalued here.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com