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The Senate Finance Committee approved an $850 billion increase in the public debt limit, from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion (Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate).

• FINANCE COMMITTEE APPROVES RESOLUTION TO RAISE DEBT LIMIT: Panel told by Treasury Department that Federal government will hit debt ceiling in early October. Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate. Max Baucus, Chairman. Press Release, 12-Sep-07.
• Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Anthony Ryan: August 2007 Quarterly Refunding Statement. Press Release HP-515, 1-Aug-07.

• Context: "The U.S. financial and economic crisis has had severe global repercussions. The run-up to the crisis involved a substantial and widespread underestimation of risks-especially in housing-and growing leverage and liquidity mismatches, in particular through off-balance-sheet vehicles and non-bank entities in less-regulated areas. . . The sharp decline in housing prices that started in 2007 weakened several systemically important financial institutions, culminating in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and revealing major weaknesses in the U.S. regulatory and resolution frameworks. This was followed by the worst global financial panic since the Great Depression, with extreme strains in a broad range of markets, volatility in capital flows and exchange rates, and a cascade of systemic events"
• Long-Term Legacy: "As in other countries, the financial crisis will also result in a serious and enduring deterioration in public finances, exacerbating the already large challenges of swelling entitlement costs. Over 2009−11, the staff projects that federal deficits will average 9 percent of GDP, and that debt held by the public will nearly double to 75 percent of GDP; with debt maturities having shortened, gross financing requirements are projected at 30 percent of GDP, about double pre-crisis levels."

See: 2009 Article IV Consultation with the United States of America, Concluding Statement of the IMF Mission, June 10, 2009, International Monetary Fund and U.S. Department of the Treasury.

• In 1998, the top 0.01% (P99.99 -100), 13,100 tax units (out of a total of 130,945,000 tax units), had an average income of $9,970,000.
• From 1917 to 1998, excluding capital gains:
  • The income share of the top 10% (P90 -100) followed a U-shaped curve: It peaked at 46.09% in 1923, bottomed at 31.55% in 1944, moved laterally to 31.85% in 1973, then climbed to 41.44% in 1998;
  • The income share of the top 0.01% (P99.99 -100) also followed a U-shaped curve: It peaked at 4.4% in 1916, bottomed at 0.5% in 1973, then climbed to 2.57% in 1998.
• The average compensation of the top 100 CEOs (in millions of 1999 dollars) increased from about $1.3 million in 1970 to almost $40 million in 1999. By contrast, the average wage of a full-time worker remained flat at less than $37,000. (Source: Forbes Annual Compensation surveys of CEOs in top 800 companies; Average wages of full-time employees are from National Income Accounts.)

See also: Louis Uchitelle. Age of Riches: The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age. NYT, 14-Jul-07. (Amanda Cox contributed to this article.)

• A serious recession in the U.S. can "significantly slow the world economy and transmit the recession into the rest of the world" (see "Dollar crash must be averted to sustain global economic growth - UN report." UN News, 30-May-07).
• Midyear update of the 2007 World Economic Situation and Prospects report.

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