Notice the title of this article:
$7,060,259,674,497.51--Federal Debt Up $7 Trillion Under Obama http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/706025967449751-federal-debt-7t-under-obama
A Modern Monetary Theorist would look at the other side of the ledger and write, "U.S. Dollar Assets Held by Non-Federal Entities Up $7 Trillion Under Obama." And he or she wouldn't necessarily consider this outcome catastrophic or even harmful.
The Federal Debt seems to track the build up in retirement assets, for example: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=mzu.
Because users of the U.S. dollar live in a closed financial system, the dollars in those assets have to come from the Federal Debt because they literally can't from anywhere else.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
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