We know we’re in deep debt, but sometimes we don’t realize the value of the assets that we claim here in the U S of A. There was an interesting special I caught on TV during the holidays that dissected the value of everything we “own”, including land, businesses, natural resources, the value of innovations, and so forth. It was narrated by the Donald Trump, no less, so maybe we need a bit of latitude on the numbers.

Regardless, here are some breakdowns:

Natural resources, i.e., minerals, oil, water, and such have an estimated market value of about $2.4 trillion.

If we look at the breathe of our natural resources it’s substantial. After all, it’s a big country of 3½ million square miles plus and if you account for all the gold, silver, oil and other high priced commodities, and add in water, which is valuable in it’s own right, we have a treasure trove of value right beneath our feet that divides up into about $6.9 million dollars per square mile.

And since we have access to the land on top, too, what about all the crops we grow? America is known as the bread basket of the world and middle America has more farmland than most nations in the world, though nothing compared to what it once was. Prime agriculture abounds in most every state, including our own. California wine ain’t cheap you know and the Central Valley and other prime land is worth a lot of money to our state. Add in the all the livestock that graze and live upon it all and you get a value of about $3.5 trillion in land.

Even though real estate values have plunged over the past few years we as a nation still hold a lot of it. If we calculate all the houses and commercial buildings and malls and high rise structures we can put a price tag of $21 trillion to that. A nice commission check if you sold it all, but that’s another conversation since much of it is being sold to overseas investors.

Connecting all this real estate we need roads and rail lines and water lines and dams. To connect them all we have a high end and very expensive power grid which adds up to big bucks. Even just the sewer lines in this nation have a price tag of $585B, so when you add these all up what do you get? $31 trillion dollars worth.

With over 300 million people in this nation we have our share of smart ones. The value of intellectual property and inventions was thrown into the mix and the experts came up with a value of $237 trillion dollars or about $67M per square mile in this country. Maybe some of that value belongs to you?

We have without a doubt the largest military in the world and when you tabulate all the aircraft and ships and tanks and other tools of war it adds up to $1.2T. Throw in the $237 hammers and $179 screwdrivers and it may be even more.

And here’s a figure that I never thought about and that is the value of our bodies. You can’t sell it (no, not going there), but all our organs are worth a lot of money, from our eyes to our hearts and lungs and the most valuable per square inch: our bone marrow. The Six Million Dollar man has been priced upwards by inflation and don’t ask how they come up with it, but the experts value our bodies at $46 million dollars each for a total of $14 quadrillion dollars nationwide.

OK, we’re done with the assets so now the bad news: our national debt. Different people will give different answers but for the sake of finishing this conversation it was calculated at $15 trillion. I’m not sure if that was done by Republicans, Democrats, accounts or amateurs, so for what it’s worth that means that this nation is worth about $280 trillion dollars.

Happy New Year and don’t spend it all in one place.