PS: Inflation only shows up once as "The household debt figures are not adjusted for inflation" but that still renders the headline meaningless.
Basically, the article is rubbish.
Switch the graph to 10 year. We're significantly lower on the household side, not so on the government side.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-deb...
The nominal number is big, but 2008 number is today's dollars would have been $14.17 trillion, or 11.3% higher than the current debt reported.
PS: Inflation only shows up once as "The household debt figures are not adjusted for inflation" but that still renders the headline meaningless.