Are the streets of New York still paved with gold?

Economic jargon
A government earns its revenue annually from many means, mainly through taxes and fees collected, but also through returns on investments and other sources. They also spend annually, called government spending, on infrastructure, businesses and on other things that will look after the welfare of the people it governs. But when a country spends more than what it earns, this is called a budget deficit. To fund this deficit, to get money to spend beyond its means, a government has to borrow, and that is called public debt. It is called "public debt" because the public, the taxpayer, the yous and mes, have to pay for this spending.


The Great Deficit: is it fair to future generations?
In 1990, the annual deficit of America was at $220.4 billion. In just the first 3 months of 2009, the American government is expected to borrow already more than double that of $493 billion. I say again, that figure is for just the first 3 months of this year. With this deficit set to grow at ridiculous rates in the year to come, imagine the billions of snow-balled debt the American public has to pay in terms of debt through their taxes. Not just this generation, but the next, and the next.

To put it into perspective, this means that every baby born with an American citizenship will inherit a public debt, at least in this generation. Not accounting for private debt that families owe, mortgages and their own daily bills to pay.


Gold? Or fallen icons and burdens?
Is New York then still paved with gold, the way our forefathers thought it was? Today, I think, the streets of New York are paved with fallen corporate icons and the burdens of imprudence.

Uncle T