The National Debt Clock was installed in 1989 to display the United States' total amount of debt and each family's share. The clock is the size of a billboard and is displayed near 44th Street in Manhattan, New York.
When the clock was originally manufactured, there were enough place holders for 13 digits and a dollar sign - a single digit trillion dollar number like $2,000,000,000. When the U.S. public debt reached $10,000,000,000 in September 2008, the extra digit, "1", was forced to share the space with the dollar sign. It was called a "sign of the times" that the U.S. debt had grown to large for the debt clock.
The Durst Organization, owners of the National Debt Clock, plan to replace the clock in 2009 with one that's able to display up to a quadrillion dollars.
