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To: Investor-ex! who wrote (28070)	2/12/1999 8:51:00 AM
From: Enigma	Respond to of 116752

Thanks very much - here is Lawrence Kam's response to a posting I made on another thread: Talk : International : Currencies and the Global Capital Markets \| Previous \| ------ \| Respond \| To: DoubleD (1254 ) From: Lawrence Kam Friday, Feb 12 1999 2:08AM ET Reply # of 1259 >the accountant in me says that if the debt increases there can't be a paydown or surplus. This is a popular misconception. Let me refer to "Understanding the Federal Debt and Deficit," published by the Fed NY: How large is the debt? As of October 1, 1993, (hey, what do you expect, this is a government publication) the gross federal debt was $4.35 trillion [currently 5.6]. But many people look at net debt, which excludes about $1 trillion [currently 1.8] of the gross debt that is held by various government accounts. Net debt, also referred to as publicly held debt, is a more accurate way to measure how much debt the U.S. government has to repay. Why? Because when the government lends to itself, it hasn't borrowed any new funds. The $1 trillion [1.8] is money that the U.S. Treasury owes to different parts of government, such as the Social Security Trust Funds and the Highway Trust Funds; it's purely a matter of internal government bookkeeping. It's more accurate to consider the net debt, which is what the government as a whole owes, and that's about $3.3 trillion [3.8]. -

To: Investor-ex! who wrote (28070)	3/10/1999 4:05:00 PM
From: Investor-ex!	Respond to of 116752

In case anyone is interested, the US National Debt has increased since the end of last fiscal year by $125 billion. This already exceeds last year's total deficit of $113 billion by $12 billion and there are still 7 months in the current fiscal year. By extrapolation, assuming a deficit run rate of $25 billion/month ($125 billion / 5 months), this year's "true" budget deficit will come in at approximately $300 billion ($25 billion x 12 months), or 2.65 times last year's total deficit.