perspective on how much money $87,000,000,000 is.

Debt; The sum of all previously incurred annual federal deficits. Since the deficits are financed by government borrowing, national debt is equal to all government debt outstanding.
The balance of trade (or net exports, sometimes symbolized as NX) is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports in an economy over a certain period of time. A positive balance of trade is known as a trade surplus and consists of exporting more than is imported; a negative balance of trade is known as a trade deficit or, informally, a trade gap. The balance of trade is sometimes divided into a goods and a services balance; especially in the United Kingdom the terms visible and invisible balance are used.Well, the US trade deficit is up again, and you can be sure the news was accompanied by a lot of moaning and groaning and soul-searching. The main reason that all the media and the majority of Americans freak out over large trade deficit numbers is that they look at the American economy as a large bank vault with a fixed supply of money on the shelves. They reason that if more money is going out of the vault to buy things than is going back in from sales, then eventually the vault will go empty and we will be bankrupt. Either implicitly or explicitly, those who fear trade deficits perceive the trade imbalance to be red ink, something bleeding out of a fixed supply.
That's more or less what's going on right now among international finance experts. The crime in question is the U.S. trade deficit, which ... reached an amazing $805 billion last year. The mystery is how we've been able to run huge deficits ... with so few visible adverse consequences. And the future of the U.S. economy depends on which of two proposed solutions to the mystery is right. Here's the puzzle: the trade deficit means that America is ... spending far more than it earns. ... To pay for the excess of imports over exports, the United States has ... borrowed more than $3 trillion just since 1999. If Mr. Gros is right, the true position of the U.S. economy isn't as bad as you think — it's worse. The true trade deficit ... isn't $800 billion — it's more than $900 billion. And America's foreign debt ... is at least $1 trillion bigger than the official numbers say. Of course, optimists have a comeback: if things are really that bad, why are so many foreign investors still buying U.S. bonds? ... But I have two words for those who place their faith in the judgment of investors...: Nasdaq 5,000.

the Fed's recent actions

WASHINGTON - Securities regulators haven't ruled out legal action over potentially misleading comments about the financial health of Bear Stearns made days before JPMorgan arranged to buy the struggling investment bank.The agency's enforcement division has written a letter to JPMorgan Chase & Co., which agreed to acquire Bear Stearns at the fire-sale price of $260.5 million Sunday in an emeLast Monday, when rumors started to circulate on Wall Street that Bear Stearns was short on liquidity and might not have enough cash to do business, the firm's executives tried to tamp down the negative chatter with a news release. It said Bear Stearns' "balance sheet, liquidity and capital remain strong. ... There is absolutely no truth to the rumors of liquidity problems that circulated today in the market."rgency deal backed up by the Federal Reserve.

the Fed's recent actions