Breaking as we slept: Bad news/good news

From the UK and their Daily Mail just last evening: U.S. debt now as big as entire economy America's national debt has reached a worrying milestone - it is now as big as the whole of its economy. The amount owed by the federal government to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other schemes, now stands at $15.23 trillion. The government estimated the value of goods and services produced by the economy in a year at $15.17trillion as of September. This is decidedly bad news for President Obama, his administration and his re-election campaign. It's not insurmountable and the election is months away but this is not good, for sure. Then there's this, from the Gallup Poll people: U.S. Economic Confidence Rises to Seven-Month High Americans' outlook for the economy is improving faster than their ratings of current conditions Finally, we're going to heck in a debt handbasket but we're optimistic--how American is that?--just check out the Greek situation: Greek turmoil helps thieves steal a Picasso It seems that, with their debt problems, they had cut staff at the museum. Yikes. Link to original article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084353/Size-U-S-debt-entire-economy--15-23-TRILLION.html; http://www.gallup.com/poll/151958/economic-confidence-rises-seven-month-high.aspx; http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/thieves-steal-picasso-and-mondrian-paintings-in-athens/?ref=greece