Debt or DJIA: Who Gets to 20* First?

I got to wondering about all of the NYSE traders on CNBC sporting their ‘Dow 20,000′ hats. Hitting that level seems elusive, but they keep them at the ready.
Interestingly, if they would do just a tiny bit of embroidery modification, they could be assured of making those hats useful. Instead of ‘Dow 20K’, how about ‘Debt 20T’? It may be just a fun numerical coincidence that the DJIA is approaching 20,000 while the total federal debt is approaching $20 trillion, but there it is anyway.
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According to the Treasury Department, the total federal debt as of Jan. 4, 2017 is 19,952,414,234,340.71. If you got lost in all of the commas, that’s $19.952 trillion. And in case you struggle as I do at reducing fractional trillions down to more digestible numbers, it is $47.8 billion away from hitting $20 trillion. Heck, we could even see it get there by Inauguration day, which is only 14 days away. The website has the debt just a hair higher (i.e. $100 million or so, that’s a hair at these levels):

This post was published at FinancialSense on 01/06/2017.