The clock that tracks the US debt is running out of room.
We all know that the debt in the US is out of control - anything with a trillions of dollars is just an unimaginable number. Our Debt is more than $8 trillion. From Yahoo News:
Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.
So when will this milestone be reached? According to the owners of the clock, sometime before 2009, certainly before George Bush leaves office. Every second, the clock goes up $20,000.
The clock hasn't always worked flawlessly.
Toward the close of the millennium, with a booming economy fuelling annual budget surpluses, the clock began to slow and finally ran into its first mechanical problem.
"It wasn't designed to run backwards," Douglas Durst explained.
But that little flaw didn't matter for long. Within two years of Bush's Presidency, the clock came back - with a vengeance. And soon, there will be a new one up. A bigger one.
"We're not happy at the impact we're making with this one," [Durst] said.
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