The United States Public Debt placed in context to the World's Gold Supply

People usually have trouble comprehending the significance of the U.S. Public Debt in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to which it is usually compared.

Rightly or wrongly, people do believe that they understand the value of gold. Below is a visual aid to help you see how much larger the U.S. Public Debt is compared to the value of "All of the Gold in the World". The calculation and data sources are now displayed below the graph.

How the calculations are made:

1. According to the United States Treasury, the official value of the U.S. Public Debt as of 02/21/2012 (the most recent date the U.S. Treasury has calculated the debt) is $15,419,800,222,325.15 ($ 15.42 Trillion). This is what is plotted above as "US Public Debt".

2. The price of gold, per Troy Ounce, is

3. According to the World Gold Council, the world trade group of gold producers, all the gold ever mined & accumulated by all people around the world as of the end of 2010 amounts to 166,600 metric tons (5,356,314,950 Troy Ounces), almost all of it is still in human hands. If formed into a cube, this would be a cube 67.3 feet (20.51 meters) on edge.

The present day value of "All of the Gold in the World" = (Price of gold) × (All of the Gold in the World) = $1777.47 × 5,356,314,950 Troy Ounces = $9,520,689,134,176.5 ($ 9.52 Trillion). This is what is plotted above as "All the worlds gold".

So, how much is the present day liability of the US Public Debt compared to the value of "All of the Gold in the World"?

US Public Debt ÷ "Value of all of the Gold in the World" = $15,419,800,222,325.15 ÷ $9,520,689,134,176.5 = 1.62

So the liability of the US Public Debt is 1.62 times greater than the value of "All of the Gold in the World".

In other words, at this moment, "All of the Gold in the World" can only pay off 61.74% of the present US Public Debt.

4. According to the US Treasury, the U.S. Government claims to have 8,133.5 metric tons (245,262,897.04 Troy Ounces) of gold reserves.

The present day value of "The US Gold Reserves" = (Price of gold) × (The number of ounces of Gold in the US Reserves) = $1777.47 × 245,262,897.04 Troy Ounces = $435,947,441,601.689 ($ 0.44 Trillion). This is what is plotted above as "US Gold Reserves".

Believe it or not, the U.S. Treasury does provide for people to make specific contributions to pay off the U.S. Public Debt. To see how click here to go to the U.S. Treasury website and scroll all the way to the bottom..

To see why adding all of the world's silver to the U.S. Debt comparison does not make the debt look smaller, click here.