Experts Warn Debt May Threaten Economy

[steve2470]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050827/ap_on_re_us/drowning_in_debt;_ylt=ApGm0nyJkwRpgzMOzOmIWdNI2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

http://tinyurl.com/9vapf

You owe $145,000. And the bill is rising every day. That's how much it would cost every American man, woman and child to pay the tab for the long-term promises the U.S. government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor.

And it's not even taking into account credit card bills, mortgages — all the debt we've racked up personally. Savings? The average American puts away barely $1 of every $100 earned.

Our profligate ways at home are mirrored in Washington and in the global marketplace, where as a society America spends $1.9 billion more a day on imported clothes and cars and gadgets than the entire rest of the world spends on its goods and services.

A new Associated Press/Ipsos poll finds that barely a third of Americans would cut spending to reduce the federal deficit and even fewer would raise taxes.

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