Conduct an Internet search on the "national debt to the penny." How much is the current national debt? Once you find out the size of the debt, determine if the federal government is helped or hurt by unanticipated inflation if the interest rate on the debt and its payments are fixed. Explain.

The National Debt to the Penny represents the daily report of United State's total outstanding public debt. It comprise of debt held by the public and intergovernmental holdings. The updated figure of the National Debt to the Penny is daily updated by 3pm.

To determine whether the unanticipated inflation has helped or hurt the federal government, analysis will be based on both the short and the long run effects.

In the short run, it can be said that the unanticipated inflation has helped the federal government when considering the national debt to the penny. This conclusion is based on the fact that tax revenues received is increased by the inflation while the interest rates and principal of the bond used to finance the debt remains fixed.

Hence, it brings additional income to the federal government through increased tax revenue without a proportionate increase in interest.

However, in the long run, the ripple effect of the inflation is that in order to acquire bond to pay up the debt by the federal government, individuals who buy the bonds will ask for higher interest rates to compensate for the rising inflation. This means, the federal government's future acquisition of bond to finance debt will be at a higher interest rate.

The summary is as follows: In the Short Run, unanticipated inflation helps the federal government by raising revenue as a result of higher tax revenues but in the Long Run, the federal government is hurt by unanticipated inflation because bonds will only be acquired at higher interest rates in order to settle the debt and finance activities.