LETTERS: U.S. DEBT IS BIGGEST RIPOFF EVER

To the editor:

It is estimated by those who are in a position to know that our government -- which in reality is we, the people -- owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 trillion to $5 trillion. No one can accurately state the exact amount, because spending and wasting go on at such a fast rate that by the time one figures it out, the amount has already risen by several billion dollars. To those who have never given it a thought, maybe it's time you did, because part of this was your money.

The following figures are in round numbers, and there could be a small mistake, but anyone who reads this is free to refigure it. Compete accuracy isn't the issue. The enormity of the situation is the issue, and its purpose it to awaken those who have been asleep for much too long.

A dollar bill is approximately 6 inches long. If you put them end to end, it would take 10,560 to reach a mile and 52,800,000 to reach around the earth. If you placed a trillion of them end to end, they would circle the earth about 18,939 times. Or if you stacked them flat on top of each other, it would take about 160 to make an inch, 1,920 per foot and 10,137 per mile. To carry it on to a trillion, it would take a stack about 394,800 miles high. In my opinion, that's quite a pile of change for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and on into eternity to have to make up for our senseless folly.

But the big question is this: Where has it all gone? I'm quite sure it didn't evaporate. And I doubt if anyone has destroyed it. The poor don't have it, and the middle class for the most part is in debt up to its eyeballs. So it seems to be a mystery or a sleight-of-hand trick, unless you conclude that maybe the ones who are well-heeled enough to buy elections, come members of Congress, favorable laws and their competitors may have it, along with foreign countries that have been given half a trillion dollars and use most of it to buy war materiel, most likely to be used against us in the future.

How many working people can buy out their neighbors regardless of cost? I'd say very few. How many corporations and banks buy out their competitors? Dozens each week. This is done to destroy competition so they can amass still more of the wealth of the country.

So it may not be a mystery after all. This is the biggest ripoff of a population the world has ever known. On consolation is that it is certain to be the last. No other country would be that foolish, and when the United Nations is through with us, we won't have any more wealth to pilfer.

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau