Poirot - Good one I like that.

A pity there's no income clock as well or something showing the trillion dollars held in mortgages or the 160 billion in Bonds or the many other items that show this to be little more than a misleading gimmick.

It's amazing how some people can accept anything at face value when it supports what they even suspect to be true without challenge.

The company behind this is Tasmanian company MASINA Pty Ltd but I have no idea where the figures come from but I'm prepared to bet that it appeared in the last few years and will quietly disappear if there is a change in government, just like the famous Debt Truck.

Yep, it's all pretty meaningless, given there is no context or detail.

>>It's amazing how some people can accept anything at face value when it supports what they even suspect to be true without challenge.<<

But in their defence, the debt clocks do provide colour and movement, which some people tend to latch onto, like kittens chasing a ball of wool.

If people are so scared of debt, why do they all have mortgages on their houses? The default rate in Australia is minuscule, which means that most people are happily paying the interest on it, month after month.

And when did you last see anyone paying cash at the Coles checkout? As far as the statistics are concerned, your monthly balance is counted in the "debt clock" even if you pay it off, regular as clockwork, every month. Even if everyone paid their balance down on the due date, there is an average of around thirty days in a month, so the balance on the debt clock would count twentynine-thirtieths of the entire total, on any given day.

Always, always, "follow the money". Don't get sucked in by spurious numbers that are only there to scare you into a particular attitude or set of behaviours.

Like Barnaby Joyce and his mega-trillion "exposure" of our economy to what he calls "derivatives", all that is needed is a deliberate avoidance of the least skerrick of understanding, and you have yourself a hysterical rant, unfounded in either fact or logic.

Here we go again - create a threat or an enemy and put yourself up as the only solution.

It doesn't even matter whether the threat is real or implied.

These are crazy times.

We have a Labor Government that's taking away benefits from some single mothers and a Conservative Opposition that wants to hand out even more welfare to wealthy mothers to hire nannies.
We have a Labor government that's using "the marketplace" as a solution for reducing carbon and and opposition that wants to introduce a "socialist" solution by giving taxpayer dollars to polluters.

Meanwhile people worry about something that's not really a problem but presented as some sort of crisis.

Belly>> SOG look I am sorry.
Mate, you have no clue.<<

Don’t be sorry china. Are you going keep quoting the same lines out of context?
Re CAGW and believing what I see rather than what the CAGW paid scientific spinners tell me.
What about the “HOCKEY STICK”? The respected academics had to lie through their teeth to get a catastrophic result for the press releases to feed the simple minded acolytes that believe them….they printed lies and spread it globally. Or do you forget that one sport?

579, anyone who can put their pants on knows that debt does not generate profit for the debtor. My question to you is “who dresses you”.

Poirot>> To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee:

That's not a debt clock.

This is a debt clock<<

Poirot really…..What an infantile argument….”they are worse off than us”…..Less than six years ago we had a surplus….

Wobbles>> It's amazing how some people can accept anything at face value when it supports what they even suspect to be true without challenge<<

The fiscal cretin Swan had to go to parliament to raise our borrowing limit to $250 BILLION, and Gillard muted a further $50 BILLION increase in 2012. It is now and will be a record federal government debt…….I don’t suspect we have the largest debt in the nation’s history…..it is fact.
TBC

Pericles>> Yep, it's all pretty meaningless, given there is no context or detail.<<

We say goodbye to $1 Billion in interest payments alone each month….that is $1 Billion of the dollars that taxpayers earned going to European banks that is the only pertinent detail Pericles.

>> Don't get sucked in by spurious numbers that are only there to scare you into a particular attitude or set of behaviours.<<

Behaviors such as expecting the government to balance the budget.
Labor has not balanced one.
Behaviors such as expecting the government to successfully implement policy.
Failure after failure
Behaviors such as expecting the government to educate our children.
After the BER, computers for all, our primary kids are the least literate in the English speaking world.
Behaviors such as expecting the government to secure our borders.
“Breaking the model” was the tripe the pinocchioesque Gillard regurgitated over and over again.
Behaviors such as expecting the government to maintain a defense force.
Defense budget torn to shreds to pay interest on debt.
Behaviors such as expecting the PM not to lie through her teeth.
In 2007 Gillard lied about her involvement with “The Socialist Forum”.
In 2010 Gillard lied about speaking with the East Timor's President.
In 2010 Gillard lied about a carbon tax.
In 2010 Gillard lied to independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
In 2010 Gillard election lied about same-sex marriage.
Gillard lied about not plotting to remove Kevin Rudd as prime minister.