So far…
literally meaningless to me. i couldn’t care less. money is fake and nobody is ever going to do shit about the debt. who? tell me who is going to do what and without any devastating worldwide consequence?
we can owe $6 quintillion and it won’t mean shit we will print and print and borrow and borrow and so will every other country.
Having large debt matters for how expensive access to cash is. No matter how “fake” it is, the financial system puts a premium on how long it takes to get their lent money back. The longer it’s stuck, the worse the reputation of getting it back, or simply the higher the demand — the higher the premium.
And as you need cash to make payments for goods and services (as opposed to tax rebates) that has the effect that US tax dollars and investments have lower rate of return as sufficient cash gets more expensive.
Another part is that the debt will be taken out in some form, e.g. foreign currency, making that currency more available for cash transactions (while at the same time making yours’ less available due to being locked into what you needed it for). This shifts trade away from USD, which makes it much harder to influence/control what it’s used for, how much it’s worth, and harder to make people care how much of it there is.
As the world trades in something besides USD and/or avoids investing in the US due to high costs/volatility, the US gets less relevant/influential in global policy, diplomacy, business, investments and even domestic policy.
It’s a modern day religion … it’s a faith based system
It works and functions and is all powerful because enough people believe in it and hold all their faith in it … it’s faith and belief that make it work
But it’s also the Achilles heel of the whole system … if enough people in the whole system stop believing in it … it all collapses in on itself and it is destroyed and evaporates instantly.
So is the rest of our consensus reality…
This analogy is very apt. I stopped giving money (and wealth in general) power over my emotional state. I only care about making rent and many of my recent luxuries are buying independent art like games and music as well as local shops.
Turns out, if you stop wanting all the time, you also stop consuming.
Calm down there Siddhartha… /s
It was my introduction to Taoism that helped.
… it’s faith and belief that make it work
But it’s also the Achilles heel of the whole system … if enough people in the whole system stop believing in it … it all collapses in on itself and it is destroyed and evaporates instantly.
Just like the US Constitution.
It’s possible that other countries might start calling us on the debt, if we borrow faster than we lend, or faster than inflation.
Countries don’t have credit ratings in the same way Americans do, but they still have ratings on their bonds. If those ratings get downgraded, people stop lending us money, and then everything crashes and burns.
Our ratings HAVE been downgraded, and it’s only going to get worse
Most of our debt is domestically owned, though.
The same process still applies, though. Domestic lenders can also drive the rates up by refusing to lend.
US debt reaches $37, a trillion years before expected. FIFY
This is how I first read the headline, too. It took a double-take to read it correctly.
This title could really use a comma.
US debt reaches $37, trillion years before expected.
I wish that was the actual debt and timeline. $37 debt would be preferable
Or scientific notation
When a dem is in power, the deficit is the most important topic. When a repub is in power, anything goes.
Witnessing the supreme white economy before your very eyes
Seriously?
What idiot thought it would take a trillion years for the US to rack up $37 in debt?
lmao
Came in to make the same stupid joke. Love to see I’ve been beaten to it.
Me too kolanaki, me too. I was so excited too, ah well, I’ll be faster next time.
Those are just fake numbers. USA is not in debt, in fact it has a surplus of 9000 quintilions. Trump probably.
Trump has definitely never used the word “quintillion”.
It’s OK. I heard after the prescription price reduction, he’s looking to lower the national debt by at least 1500% also.
I still waiting for the damn “trickle down economics“ that Reagan PROMISED!
It was ruled in court to be illegal in 1919 in the Dodge vs Ford lawsuit.
At the time, Ford himself wanted to: “My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.”
But shareholders (both Dodge brothers of the Dodge car company) sued against this and in the end the judge declared that: “A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits or to the nondistribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes.”
Basically, if you attempted trickle down economics, you’d be “stealing” from the shareholders. Extra money is to be given to shareholders as dividends, not for boosting the pay of your employees if it doesn’t involve adding more profits to the bottom line.
If America paid attention to its own history Reagan would be remembered as the worst president
Second worst now, imo
An America that learns from Reagan would never have elected Trump
Yes, no argument here. I know Reagan holds a lot of responsibility for the prep, but i think trump is still worse
Maybe third, Jackson was really fucking bad
There is really a lot of competition for that spot.
That’s what a conman as leader of your country will get you. Fired half the government workforce, still spent more money than the last guy and he’s only been in office for 6 months. It only goes down from here folks, hope you enjoyed the ride. This is your last stop.
I’m planning to leave tbh
Well, things like that happen when you throw money at billionaires instead of collecting taxes from them.
Fucking Democracts not paying the debt down.
- Republicans
I hope foreign nations blacklist the American elite from migrating to their shores and owning anything in their territories. The wealthy are parasites that inevitably kill the host.
many of them are complicit in laundering money for them, swiss bank, malta?, destuche bank,etc.
the title from Newsweek is so poorly written
The debt didn’t reach $37 just a trillion years early?
I initially parsed it as “the US reached 37 billion years before…” like it was a sci-fi apocalyptic piece set in the far future
So what happens when the US defaults? Just asking for those that are curious to see where this slowmotion trainwreck is heading
think 2008 crisis, but worst. because everything was getting cut. when obama came in the military was downsizing as well, until TRUMP came into power for the first time.
They aren’t actually borrowing from anybody, the debt is to themselves. It basically just means the US Federal Government spends more than it collects every year since POTUS Clinton was in charge.
They do set an upper limit to the debt / annual deficit and if they fail to resolve it by raising the limit then the federal government goes into shutdown: no new laws passed, no federal employees get paid, etc. But they pretty much always raise the limit. The last time the limit was raised it was a bipartisan push to keep the government running, during which the DNC members who joined with the Republicans received a lot of criticism for doing what the Republicans wanted, but TBH I don’t really think things would have been much better off if the government had shut down again.
Next time, though, it’s become clear that the Senate will keep stripping rights and not allow a single bit of progress to be made no matter how far into fascism this nation falls, so definitely should shut down.
Pretty sure it’s actually Nixon’s fault from 1971
I never mentioned fault I just said Clinton was the last POTUS to create surplus. I blame Reagan for cutting taxes.
They mention Clinton because when he left office, the federal government was running at a surplus and was paying down the national debt. However, that changed after Bush came to office and passed tax cuts before starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Republicans: let’s increase spending like crazy while giving all the rich discounts, plummeting our income. In the meantime we just pretend that we’re spending less than Democrats
What could possibly go wrong?
This is a vast misrepresentation. National debt is literally bank loans the government has taken out and promissory notes like Treasury bonds. They owe investors, banks, and individuals money - only 1/5th of the national debt is held by intergovernment bodies (meaning money the government has loaned itself and ‘owes themselves’). 80%+ of the debt is owed to non-internal groups. Even the self-owed debt must be repaid, or the government would be defaulting on a loan from one department to pay the other - robbing Peter to pay Paul.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2023/05/26/who-does-the-u-s-owe-31-4-trillion
Yes but the banks are a part of the US Financial System and Governance. For better or worse, the Federal Reserve System is tiered in a way that each private bank adheres to their regional reserve bank, of which there are 12 total, which adheres to the US federal reserve board. The private banks can also elect representatives to the board of their own regional reserve bank, while the federal reserve board members are appointed by presidents.
That’s not even mentioning the FOMC.
But the debt is still of the USA to the USA at the end of the day. If third parties like China or Russia buy bonds from those of the USA who hold the value in the form of promissory then that’s fine but they have no power to enforce a payout in case of a “default”. The notes just lose a little value, to the holder’s detriment.
Your whole first paragraph is irrelevant. The banks that the US owes are part of the US banking system. Ok so?
This is another misrepresentation. You think it’s no big deal if treasury bills “lose a little value”?
If treasury bills lose value, that will begin a mass sell-off, which will cause the US dollar value to plummet. If there was a default, the US would lose its credit rating and not be able to get future loans. That would grind your government and industries to a halt.
Back on the initial point, foreign counties currently own almost a third of the US national debt, it is not “debt of the USA to the USA” - many of the additonal institutions (beyond the 1/3rd) that hold the debt (banks and investment groups) are also either foreign or international and not headquartered in the US.
In summary, the national debt is loans owed to many groups, a very large portion of which are foreign to the US. “They aren’t actually borrowing from anybody” is wildly inaccurate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Holders_of_debt
Lmfao yeah ok pal, the banks are going to start denying the federal government loans. Yeah right. I bet the Fed won’t even use their authority to set bank interest rates as a response, will they? Or maybe all the banks will just stop giving out all loans forever? What a crock of shit.
How on earth would the federal reserve adjusting interest rates improve the US’s situation if they were defaulting on loans? For starters, big loans like the ones the govt borrow are generally are not variable interest, they’re fixed rate. Second treasury bills have guaranteed maturity rates based on their yield, that’s why they’re generally considered a safe investment - again, the fed adjusting rates would do what? Zip. Except maybe make groups panic sell their bonds out of increased concerns of US stability.
The US was already downgraded by all the major credit rating firms, in 2011 and the most recent downgrade was May this year - they mostly came on the heels of debt ceiling raises by congress. Its not likely to happen anytime soon, but yes - if the US’ credit rating dips further, bankers and investors will not want to buy US treasury bonds. This has already affected the interest rate the US govt must pay on loans (increased them). Eventually if it gets low enough, the government will not be able to secure loans because the banks will consider them too risky, that’s how the banking system works. Somehow you seem to think the US govt runs the banks, or owns them? It don’t. It must pay back every cent it borrows, or the financial system of the US will circle the drain - just ask Greece, or Spain… Or… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises
Lol bro doesn’t get it
Austerity. Eventually.
Debt doesn’t matter, especially in the usa.
There will be no default. However, there will be massive inflation and loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
