Economists often say that the national debt isn't analogous to consumer debt, because the US has a number of means to address it that the average consumer does not have, including the ability to print money.
And while that's true ... perhaps we as citizens and taxpayers would be better off ignoring that technicality and treating this debt as more like consumer debt.
Eventually, it's going to come back to bite us or our children, and we need to be willing to make some hard choices now to avoid having to make even harder choices later.
…add on another $1T for the student loans that will never be repaid. Those aren’t counted? There’s a shocker. Mr. Market lost his Marker up his ass a long time ago y’all. Plan accordingly.
I'm sort of surprised to see this on the HN front page. Typically the US national debt is only a mainstream topic of discourse when there isn't a Republican in office.
As GDP percentage, only two countries are higher: Italy and Greece (edit: and Japan).
Public debt is a significant political talking point in both cases (and even in Germany, with a much lower debt percentage).
The current US administration (and the last republicans in general) did an excellent job in pretending to be the ones fighting public debt when they are actually exacerbating it; I'm curious if there is gonna be a reckoning at some point.
Government debt gets resolved eventually through inflation. There's never a point where we have to "pay it all back" and get the debt down to zero. We just end up paying of a $1 loan with a dollar that's worth only 50c.
So there's never a particular point that it "comes back to bite us" - if anything, the "bite" is happening already right now for all of us. Inflation is a form of taxation on currency. It's less like credit card debt and more like wage garnishing.
It's also worth pointing out that young people are less affected by inflation than old - retirees and people with savings. Inflation is good for people in debt. So it's not so much your children you have to worry about with today's debt level so much as it is yourself.
Apparently the debt is keeping the Fed from raising interest rates as much as they did in 1979 when a similar crisis happened. Raising interest rates would increase the debt servicing costs pushing the US into a debt crisis.
I will never forget, and neither should you, that the last time we had a budget surplus, instead of doing _anything_ useful with it, the Republicans decided the best thing to do was to send everyone a check in the mail.
Among the useful suggestions of what to do with it, besides pay down the debt: Keep a slush fund in case of an unexpected war. (This was a few weeks before 9/11.)
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 45.2 ms ] threadAnd while that's true ... perhaps we as citizens and taxpayers would be better off ignoring that technicality and treating this debt as more like consumer debt.
Eventually, it's going to come back to bite us or our children, and we need to be willing to make some hard choices now to avoid having to make even harder choices later.
From https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/d...
3/19/2025 $36,214,467,819,348.16. --> 3/17/2026 $39,016,762,910,245.14
Yet strangely all Republicans are silent
I know us is buyoed by the petrodollar, but surely that only goes so far.
Well, we found another agency that won't last much longer in this administration...
Isn’t it Time to Stop Calling it “The National Debt”? - https://evonomics.com/isnt-time-stop-calling-national-debt/
Public debt is a significant political talking point in both cases (and even in Germany, with a much lower debt percentage).
The current US administration (and the last republicans in general) did an excellent job in pretending to be the ones fighting public debt when they are actually exacerbating it; I'm curious if there is gonna be a reckoning at some point.
Are you feeling those tremendous efficiency gains yet?
So there's never a particular point that it "comes back to bite us" - if anything, the "bite" is happening already right now for all of us. Inflation is a form of taxation on currency. It's less like credit card debt and more like wage garnishing.
It's also worth pointing out that young people are less affected by inflation than old - retirees and people with savings. Inflation is good for people in debt. So it's not so much your children you have to worry about with today's debt level so much as it is yourself.
That chart doesn't include WWII, which might be the only time that comes close.
Among the useful suggestions of what to do with it, besides pay down the debt: Keep a slush fund in case of an unexpected war. (This was a few weeks before 9/11.)