A digital clock in New York City counts up the U.S. National Debt. But the current administration broke the clock which only had enough digits to count up to $9,999,999,999,999. As Dick Cheney said, Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. I wonder whether this broken clock is proving Cheney wrong?

The clock has an interesting history. The now-deceased Manhattan real estate developer, Seymour Durst, built this sign in 1989 because he thought that the then $2.7 trillion debt was too high. The debt kept growing after he put up the sign but by the end of Bill Clinton's second term, it was down to around $5 trillion. Since January 2001, the national debt has grown to $11.3 trillion thanks to the $850 billion bailout bill.

The good news is that the clock, which currently counts the deficit by substituting a 1 for the $ sign that was there before, will be fixed next year -- adding two digits. Too bad fixing the clock won't make the U.S. economy any less perilous. At 81% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), our national debt is way above the 60% that the IMF considers to be a risky borrower.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Apparently denying responsibility and shifting the blame is a policy that applies to more than just the Bush Administration's political affairs.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription required) that Vice President Dick Cheney testified to the SEC in 2004 regarding Halliburton's (NYSE: HAL) accounting. Former CFO Gary Morris had told investigators that he and Cheney had discussed plans to book disputed, over-budget expenses related to an Egyptian construction project as income.

But Cheney doesn't remember that conversation He testified that "I have no recollection of it. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen."

Don't you hate it when that happens? He also said that he remembers the cost over-runs but didn't remember discussing the accounting and basically told investigators that that was the CFO's issue.

Maybe Cheney's telling the truth. But given the generally slimy personal character that he has displayed as Vice President, you have to doubt his sincerity.

Dick Cheney is certainly no stranger to criticism. In recent months, the Bush administration has come under sharp attack from foreign leaders, Congress, and Democratic presidential candidates, not to mention Barbra Streisand. But last week, Cheney drew criticism from an unlikely source: His investment manager, Jeremy Grantham.

Some choice quotes from his report, "While America Slept, 1986-2002: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data:"

"Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change, and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain."

"The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)."

According to TheStreet.com: "Grantham is, like most fund managers, prudent, conservative and inclined to favor the free market and smaller government. He has even said he supported Bush-Cheney in 2000. That doesn't make him particularly political. He also manages a portion of the Heinz-Kerry fortune, as well as those of many other wealthy types. "

The growing realization that global warming is a real problem that presents a "grave and growing threat" is having negative ramifcations for the Bush administration, which was recently accused of censoring climate change scientists. With global warming science now solidly part of the mainstream, investors may want to take note. For information and links about how you can profit from global warming, read my post about it here. For information about Peter Lynch's top solar power picks, read Gary Sattler's excellent piece.