US Debt Tops $9 Trillion for First Time

Bush reaches another milestone in incompetence. When he leaves office Dubya will have double the national debt. It would be interesting to know what the Republican Presidential candidates think about amassing such debt:

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday publicly held U.S. debt breached $9 trillion this week for the first time ever, just five weeks after Congress had raised the statutory borrowing limit.

At the end of September, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a measure to increase the debt limit ceiling to $9.815 trillion from $8.965 trillion, allowing the government to keep issuing debt.

The increase in the debt limit is the fifth since Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of his presidency.

It wouldn't be as bad if we weren't facing a collapsing dollar:

The dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro on Wednesday after comments by a Chinese official stoked fears the central bank of the world's fourth-largest economy would reduce its holdings of U.S. assets.

The dollar's decline was broad. It tumbled to record lows against a basket of major currencies as sentiment darkened further after General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) posted its biggest quarterly loss ever.

If the U.S. politicians are concerned the world stock markets are. We have very serious economic issues that threaten to overwhelm us all. It doesn't help that we have a madman in the White House:

Stock markets plummeted across Asia on Thursday as investors worldwide grew skittish over high oil prices and the prospect of a substantial economic slowdown in the United States.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell 3.2 percent, while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo dropped 2 percent. Shares in China tumbled the most sharply, with the CSI 300 index off 4.8 percent.

Markets in Asia fell in response to a 2.6 percent drop in Dow Jones industrial average Wednesday. The U.S. market was driven down by fear that the troubles in housing are likely to continue well into next year, contributing to further losses in credit markets and spreading pain to the rest of the economy.