The US having lots of national debt does not mean that we don't have money to spend. The large amount of debt we have is much more of an indication that people believe the US will be around for a very long time than an indication that we've over drawn or will have trouble raising more funds.
Honestly it's a pretty easy jump to make given how individuals interact with debt. I wouldn't attribute it to malice or subversion unless there was stronger evidence.
Large amounts of debt definitely make it more likely that we'll have trouble raising more funds, because greater debt means greater risk of default, which means a higher risk premium. And right now we're near historic highs: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-t...
This will surely be made worse in that a) we're moving out of a US-centric era and toward a more multipolar world, and b) recent US politics would make any serious lender wonder how likely they are to get paid back.
If that "debt" is denominated in USD, the US cannot default.
Really what is national debt in a nation with soft (non-exchangeable for gold) sovereign currency and limited foreign-denominated debt other than an increase in the money supply - or a commitment to make such increase when bonds mature?
The US can absolutely default. You're correct that they also can inflate away the debt. But it's perfectly plausible that nativists would tell foreign lenders to fuck off. Note the increasing willingness of the US right to inch up close to a debt default: https://qz.com/1062153/will-trump-actually-default-on-the-us...
OK I am not an economist, but here's my 2c (of my own currency...)
You're right, I phrased it incorrectly - the US could indeed default on its "debt" if it chose too - and maybe the current administration is more inclined to consider doing so - but it would be a choice - it never has to, if it chooses not to.
One thing the US can't and won't ever do is pay down all that debt. The associated contraction in the money supply would be economically devastating, and is basically inconceivable.
To quote the last line of your linked article "As far as the debt limit is concerned, the government really shouldn’t be run like a business." Sometimes this concept is bandied around, that a government is like a household or a business and needs to balance its budget. This is wrong, a government (of a country with sovereign currency and limited foreign-denominated debt) is a government, and should govern, adjusting the money supply to help balance the economy, letting off steam (by running a surplus, taxing more than it spends and taking money out of the economy) when the economy is running "hot" and opening the throttle (by running a deficit, spending more than it taxes and putting money into the economy) when the economy is running below capacity - excess unemployment and underemployment, productive capital laying idle etc. (The devil is of course in the detail, with different regions and sectors performing very differently, and lots of purely political distortions.)
Over time an economy that grows will naturally require more money to operate, so the default state of public finance should be deficit. It is somewhat inappropriate and unfortunate that we characterise this as "debt".
Sure, I agree that the US defaulting on its debt would at this point be a choice. If we got into Japan levels of debt, it's not so clear; inflating away that level of debt means massive inflation, which could be economically devastating.
I disagree that the US couldn't pay off its debt. Back when Greenspan was running the Fed, this looked like a possible outcome. People were worried that it would be problematic if the US stopped selling T-bills, as so much is benchmarked to them. The easy solution was to keep on doing some borrowing at the same time as running a surplus elsewhere, so that the US did have some debt, but was not a net debtor. But I don't recall anybody saying it would be devastating.
Your intuition based on your finances, does not apply at the scale of a country. Remember, they can just go to war to take what they want. It's not the same.
If anything, the debt solidifies the US position as the global currency standard. The US literally owes the world trillions of dollars. Exactly as if the rest of the world were requesting out currency for use.
In the old joke when you owe the bank a million dollars the bank has a problem it's not noted that sometimes the bank decides not to let you owe it 2 million dollars as a way of mitigating the problem.
At any rate the comment was regarding problems 20 years in the future. I don't know that the U.S will continue as the global currency standard for various reasons.
Unless oil is no longer the chief source of energy. Ultimately I think the US may do fine for itself so long as it protects its natural resources and researches (to ultimately switch to) alternative energy.
I'm pretty sure I could steal food too, but it might not go as well as expected. And there is the problem of transporting one's ill-gotten gains.
I mean I see your point, going to war to take what they want is going to be the preferred solution of some countries when things go bad but I also think for some reason that will actually make the situation worse instead of better.
I'm finding it funny sitting around thinking about all the different bad scenarios associated with climate change and then thinking ah but they can just go to war to take what they want instead of paying for it.
Coastline shrinking, New York gone? go to war take some coastline from Canada and Old York from England!
The fact that one organization (say, USA federal gov't) owes a bunch of money to other organizations (say, other agencies or various companies) doesn't say much about how much resources we have available. Since in this regard "we" isn't about the federal government; the debt doesn't show what resources are available, it's just a measure about which organization controls how much of them.
For a slightly more local and recent example, the cost of California's 2017 wildfire season exceeded $9.4 billion (http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article188...), and became a serious political football between the country's wealthiest state and the federal government.
These numbers aren't going to trend downward anytime soon.
A lot of the cost is absorbed through private means -- insurance, private funds and donations, and a lot of unfortunate people just end up eating the cost -- but if the federal government were to try to cover everything related to natural disasters, it would approximately rival the interest paid each year on federal debt.
We are seeing now the beginnings of the effects that scientists started warning us about 30 years ago. They aren't going to go away. They're only going to get bigger and more expensive and, like frogs in boiling water, we'll continue debating the merits of climate science while paying for the destruction of entire communities and it won't even occur to us that the things are related.
So as US deficits continue to increase and the tax-and-spend cycle continues through several different administrations, other programs are going to get cut back in an attempt to reduce debt (or to pay for whatever administration's favorite thing is today).
People who don't live in coastal areas or areas prone to wildfire, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, severe winter weather, or other climate-related natural disasters, might think, hey, I'll be okay.
But the money's gotta come out of somebody's pockets.
Not only a financial fortune, but I suspect a fortune in human lives too. There will be conflict. For instance, when a river over here dries up and a new one over there is formed due to changing weather patterns, or some land over there is no longer productive agriculturally due to desertification but your neighbor has new productive land that just opened up.
"Surviving" and "prospering" (and even "maintaining status quo") are completely different things.
One of the most devastating aspects of colonialism in Africa was the soil depletion caused by short-sighted colonial planters who planted resource-hungry cash crops. There are large tracts of land in various parts of Africa that once were extremely agriculturally productive but because of this depletion are quite barren. This has had cascading consequences for long-term development in Africa, and has been a non-trivial factor in exacerbating poverty and famine.
I mention this because climate change, while it might not have an outsized immediate effect on the countries that control the most guns/wealth, it could have major immediate consequences for populations with food insecurity, and therefore long-term consequences for populations that we currently consider food-secure. This extends to violent conflict as well.
If this is one of the most devastating aspects of colonialism, then colonialism must not have been very bad.
Before we have a conversation about this, I urge everyone to research the degree of soil depletion in formerly-colonized Africa, and then compare that to the degree of soil depletion elsewhere in the world (including never-colonized parts of Africa).
(For bonus points, research how much of that soil depletion occurred since the end colonialism).
The numbers are widely available.
Colonial crop management was a boon for native Africans, not a bust.
> One of the most devastating aspects of colonialism in Africa was the soil depletion caused by short-sighted colonial planters who planted resource-hungry cash crops.
I love this slanted viewpoint.
Of course deforestation, drought, erosion, population pressures, or the geologically induced and inherently low soil fertility had anything to do with it, did it? Nope, it was all the stupid white farmers fault.
Is it? We already have people living in very cold conditions and very hot conditions today...we have insulated housing/air conditioning/clothing...what's going to big the difference 30 years from now?
People need food. Food doesn't grow well in very hot and very cold conditions, nor in very wet or very dry conditions. And most other animals don't survive well outside the environment they evolved to live in.
And that’s totally how it works, less food is produced, so people just say, “Oh well, time to die.” They don’t become desperate, they don’t migrate en masse, and they don’t go to war, it’s just a peaceful loss of a few billion lives to make more room for you. All of that assuming we’re not swimming in technological miracles like some others here are saying. Fusion is right around the corner! We’re going to grow cows in test tubes for free!
That's a bit rough on anyone owed part of that $21 trillion.
Who are those people? People with pensions. Some people with IRAs or 401Ks, depending on their investment mix. The kid whose grandma gave him a savings bond. And, indirectly, lots of people who are going to expect their insurance company to have the money to pay their claim...
If you can't manage without running a deficit of a trillion dollars a year, i.e. having other people do a trillion dollars worth of work for you every year on the slate, how do you think you'll manage when those people don't believe you're good for the money?
Historically, defaulting on your debts is not a good way to get people to lend you more money. And a US debt default would surely cause economic chaos of the sort that reduces economic output, meaning national income would be down.
Money in a way isn't a real thing but a symbol representing things like work and possessions. It's entirely possible to artificially overvalue things like the rich having a piece of paper claiming ownership of things and build up an infinite obligation to work our entire lives away to fulfill that paper obligation without society as a whole being short on resources or labor.
When said obligations become ruinous and paper title to nearly everything is held by nearly no one perhaps those obligations will be reevaluated.
I think you are looking at the debt wrong. It isn't evidence of strained resources, it accumulates when the government tries to generate extra productivity over what the economy would produce without it.
Put another way, the debt is an IOU for extra work that has already been done.
Maybe we should add another trillion a year for projects that make us more resilient against the climate.
We'll see, but some technologies have the potential to change the face of the planet in ways we can barley imagine.
If nuclear fusion takes off, we have more power then we ever need, and mass pumping Co2 out of the atmosphere could be a viable thing suddenly.
Then there are looming miracles in food production. Lab grown meat and indoor farming in high rise buildings could massively raise food supply.
And lastly, autonomous robots doing construction & logistic work, and beyond that replacing basically every heavy lifting job on the planet. There are ~50 millions or so car produced annually, what if we started to pump these kind of numbers in robots? There could be "landscaping projects".
Throw all these technologies together and earth might look like Coruscant sooner then we think.
Our cities will continue to grow and develop, but that doesn't use much space. Lab grown meat and vertical farms have the potential to actually increase the size of the wild spaces on Earth, even at double or triple our current population.
> If nuclear fusion takes off, we have more power then we ever need, and mass pumping Co2 out of the atmosphere could be a viable thing suddenly.
...and it will still be cheaper for the rich to climate control their own domes than the entire atmosphere.
> Then there are looming miracles in food production. Lab grown meat and indoor farming in high rise buildings could massively raise food supply.
...for those who can pay for it.
> And lastly, autonomous robots doing construction & logistic work, and beyond that replacing basically every heavy lifting job on the planet. There are ~50 millions or so car produced annually, what if we started to pump these kind of numbers in robots? There could be "landscaping projects".
...and robots would consolidate all of the money into the hands of the wealthy elite even more, since they no longer have to pay workers.
Technology is important but ultimately it is only a tool. Without massive social change, technology will continue to fall into the hands of people who only use it to enrich themselves.
From what I’ve read, they’re talking about a cooling event. We’re talking about entire sections of the earth becoming uninhabitable by even modern day civilization. As someone who just moved from very hot to dry but cooler, you can always heat a place up easily but cooling down is never enough.
Not to pick on you but this is a common misconception of evolution. You don't outgrow your ancestry. You are and your descendants always will be human. Just as they will always be primates and mammals and animals.
Based on how evolution has gone over hundreds of thousands of years - I cant say I agree with you - but mostly in the concept of human-centric-time - yeah, I'd agree with you - no substantive change happens over 10 generations, but over 10,000 generations? yes.
Look at dogs, they evolved from wolves, and while both are still canids, we'd for sure call a dog, not a wolf.
No. Dogs did not evolve from modern wolves. They evolved from a common ancestor of both dogs and wolves. If we call that common ancestor "wolves" as we call the modern wolf it is the fault of language not of cladistics.
That's just due to human categorization and labelling of things, but isn't an absolute truth.
My feeling is if we evolve into something with just a brain and no body (with the help of technology perhaps) then that is something else. But you can also argue it is still human if that species has the same emotions. But maybe it wont.
Sure why not. I guess it isn't likely, but imagine if there was a similar settlement near the one in the article that disappeared right around 11,000 years ago.
A cataclysmic event around 11,600-12,800 years ago is absolutely what the evidence suggests and nobody covers the topic better than Graham Hancock. Though he seems to think there were both hunter and gatherers and an advanced civilization based on the discovery of Gobekli Tepe and other megalithic architecture located in Peru, Easter Island, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Mexico, & Japan.
I didn't downvote you, but it's most likely because Hancock's ideas are considered pseudoscientific. He has no academic credentials: has not subjected his ideas to peer review, or published in any recognized journals.
Plus, you basically said it yourself: "Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic..."
(That said, these lazy 'drive-by downvoters' are extremely annoying. If any of them are reading this, shame on you.)
You are likely right. I don't refute that those accusations exist. Hancock is a curious writer who bases his theories on the discoveries of all disciplines such as geology, physics, engineering, & oral history, from both the academic and non-academic alike which a small handful of very powerful archeologists seem to have a large issue with.
In particular Hancock refused to dismiss and instead validated Robert Schoch's Sphinx water erosion timeline and Robert Bouval's Orion Correlation Theory which both essentially discredits Zahi Hawass's work.
I think the using the term `pseudoscience` is going too far when describing Hancock, though I know there was a BBC documentary where he was described that way. His work is supported and respected by many and I even dare say the most competent academics in their field. Hancock visits all the sites and talks to every expert he can. I believe he even spent 2 years performing over 200 dives to explore underwater sites off the coast in Japan. He takes this subject as seriously as anyone in the field and his commitment is undeniable.
> Plus, you basically said it yourself: "Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic..."
FWIW - I specifically chose those words for this reason :)
The thing about getting knocked back to the stone age is that if you're the Jetsons it's the end of the world, if you're the Flintstones it's a Tuesday.
70 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadThe US debt is $21 trillion and we’re adding a trillion a year.
We’re going to need both an economic and technological miracle in about 50 years.
Do we save the expensive real estate or buy people out?
This will surely be made worse in that a) we're moving out of a US-centric era and toward a more multipolar world, and b) recent US politics would make any serious lender wonder how likely they are to get paid back.
But you're right because: people have faith right up until they don't.
http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
Now they're on the Euro things may well be different. Never give away sovereignty over your currency.
Really what is national debt in a nation with soft (non-exchangeable for gold) sovereign currency and limited foreign-denominated debt other than an increase in the money supply - or a commitment to make such increase when bonds mature?
You're right, I phrased it incorrectly - the US could indeed default on its "debt" if it chose too - and maybe the current administration is more inclined to consider doing so - but it would be a choice - it never has to, if it chooses not to.
One thing the US can't and won't ever do is pay down all that debt. The associated contraction in the money supply would be economically devastating, and is basically inconceivable.
To quote the last line of your linked article "As far as the debt limit is concerned, the government really shouldn’t be run like a business." Sometimes this concept is bandied around, that a government is like a household or a business and needs to balance its budget. This is wrong, a government (of a country with sovereign currency and limited foreign-denominated debt) is a government, and should govern, adjusting the money supply to help balance the economy, letting off steam (by running a surplus, taxing more than it spends and taking money out of the economy) when the economy is running "hot" and opening the throttle (by running a deficit, spending more than it taxes and putting money into the economy) when the economy is running below capacity - excess unemployment and underemployment, productive capital laying idle etc. (The devil is of course in the detail, with different regions and sectors performing very differently, and lots of purely political distortions.)
Over time an economy that grows will naturally require more money to operate, so the default state of public finance should be deficit. It is somewhat inappropriate and unfortunate that we characterise this as "debt".
I disagree that the US couldn't pay off its debt. Back when Greenspan was running the Fed, this looked like a possible outcome. People were worried that it would be problematic if the US stopped selling T-bills, as so much is benchmarked to them. The easy solution was to keep on doing some borrowing at the same time as running a surplus elsewhere, so that the US did have some debt, but was not a net debtor. But I don't recall anybody saying it would be devastating.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFII5
It looks like it's trending up recently, but still well below 1% adjusted for inflation.
I mean I see your point, going to war to take what they want is going to be the preferred solution of some countries when things go bad but I also think for some reason that will actually make the situation worse instead of better.
Coastline shrinking, New York gone? go to war take some coastline from Canada and Old York from England!
The fact that one organization (say, USA federal gov't) owes a bunch of money to other organizations (say, other agencies or various companies) doesn't say much about how much resources we have available. Since in this regard "we" isn't about the federal government; the debt doesn't show what resources are available, it's just a measure about which organization controls how much of them.
The federal government additionally had hurricane and flood damage events, among others, totaling a record-breaking $306 billion for 2017 (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2017...).
These numbers aren't going to trend downward anytime soon.
A lot of the cost is absorbed through private means -- insurance, private funds and donations, and a lot of unfortunate people just end up eating the cost -- but if the federal government were to try to cover everything related to natural disasters, it would approximately rival the interest paid each year on federal debt.
We are seeing now the beginnings of the effects that scientists started warning us about 30 years ago. They aren't going to go away. They're only going to get bigger and more expensive and, like frogs in boiling water, we'll continue debating the merits of climate science while paying for the destruction of entire communities and it won't even occur to us that the things are related.
So as US deficits continue to increase and the tax-and-spend cycle continues through several different administrations, other programs are going to get cut back in an attempt to reduce debt (or to pay for whatever administration's favorite thing is today).
People who don't live in coastal areas or areas prone to wildfire, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, severe winter weather, or other climate-related natural disasters, might think, hey, I'll be okay.
But the money's gotta come out of somebody's pockets.
"Surviving" and "prospering" (and even "maintaining status quo") are completely different things.
I mention this because climate change, while it might not have an outsized immediate effect on the countries that control the most guns/wealth, it could have major immediate consequences for populations with food insecurity, and therefore long-term consequences for populations that we currently consider food-secure. This extends to violent conflict as well.
Before we have a conversation about this, I urge everyone to research the degree of soil depletion in formerly-colonized Africa, and then compare that to the degree of soil depletion elsewhere in the world (including never-colonized parts of Africa).
(For bonus points, research how much of that soil depletion occurred since the end colonialism).
The numbers are widely available.
Colonial crop management was a boon for native Africans, not a bust.
I love this slanted viewpoint.
Of course deforestation, drought, erosion, population pressures, or the geologically induced and inherently low soil fertility had anything to do with it, did it? Nope, it was all the stupid white farmers fault.
A lot of alarmism if you ask me.
) Persistently recurring conditions such as flooding, drought, and higher temperatures
) More frequent and/or more severe extreme weather events
) Sea level rise and temperature changes
) Decreases in Arctic ice cover, type, and thickness
http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-...
One thing that short 2015 report does not cover is reduction in crop yields that frequently lead to conflict.
No wonder we’re screwed.
So just reset it to zero.
Who are those people? People with pensions. Some people with IRAs or 401Ks, depending on their investment mix. The kid whose grandma gave him a savings bond. And, indirectly, lots of people who are going to expect their insurance company to have the money to pay their claim...
Put another way, the debt is an IOU for extra work that has already been done.
Maybe we should add another trillion a year for projects that make us more resilient against the climate.
If nuclear fusion takes off, we have more power then we ever need, and mass pumping Co2 out of the atmosphere could be a viable thing suddenly.
Then there are looming miracles in food production. Lab grown meat and indoor farming in high rise buildings could massively raise food supply.
And lastly, autonomous robots doing construction & logistic work, and beyond that replacing basically every heavy lifting job on the planet. There are ~50 millions or so car produced annually, what if we started to pump these kind of numbers in robots? There could be "landscaping projects".
Throw all these technologies together and earth might look like Coruscant sooner then we think.
> If nuclear fusion takes off, we have more power then we ever need, and mass pumping Co2 out of the atmosphere could be a viable thing suddenly.
...and it will still be cheaper for the rich to climate control their own domes than the entire atmosphere.
> Then there are looming miracles in food production. Lab grown meat and indoor farming in high rise buildings could massively raise food supply.
...for those who can pay for it.
> And lastly, autonomous robots doing construction & logistic work, and beyond that replacing basically every heavy lifting job on the planet. There are ~50 millions or so car produced annually, what if we started to pump these kind of numbers in robots? There could be "landscaping projects".
...and robots would consolidate all of the money into the hands of the wealthy elite even more, since they no longer have to pay workers.
Technology is important but ultimately it is only a tool. Without massive social change, technology will continue to fall into the hands of people who only use it to enrich themselves.
You may not.
A: "I don't care; eventually I'll be dead anyway"
While a true statement, it minimizes the real implications of a valid question.
Look at dogs, they evolved from wolves, and while both are still canids, we'd for sure call a dog, not a wolf.
My feeling is if we evolve into something with just a brain and no body (with the help of technology perhaps) then that is something else. But you can also argue it is still human if that species has the same emotions. But maybe it wont.
Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic last week. This is well worth viewing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZhSun9_SYs
edit: Down voters should leave a comment. I'm curious what you have to say as I've spent a lot of time researching this topic.
Plus, you basically said it yourself: "Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic..."
(That said, these lazy 'drive-by downvoters' are extremely annoying. If any of them are reading this, shame on you.)
In particular Hancock refused to dismiss and instead validated Robert Schoch's Sphinx water erosion timeline and Robert Bouval's Orion Correlation Theory which both essentially discredits Zahi Hawass's work.
I think the using the term `pseudoscience` is going too far when describing Hancock, though I know there was a BBC documentary where he was described that way. His work is supported and respected by many and I even dare say the most competent academics in their field. Hancock visits all the sites and talks to every expert he can. I believe he even spent 2 years performing over 200 dives to explore underwater sites off the coast in Japan. He takes this subject as seriously as anyone in the field and his commitment is undeniable.
> Plus, you basically said it yourself: "Hancock gave an unbelievable presentation on the topic..."
FWIW - I specifically chose those words for this reason :)