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US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

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Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#71

Post by potato3732842 »

Terr_ wrote: post #6

For the visually-inclined, a graph of debt as a proportion of GDP [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S Of course, this doesn't show projections for what the future debt will become after the Republican's "BBB" package from a few months ago. [0] Yes, I know GDP is a flawed measure, but as long as its flaws are consistent over the years it is useful for scaling.

The real scary thing ought to be how tapped out the GDP is now vs when the graph was low. In the 1970s and 80s there was plenty of room for growth. These days the women are all in the workforce and everything is financialized already. There's no "easy gains" in 2020whatevver.

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#72

Post by Freedom2 »

duxup wrote: post #3

I'm mildly surprised they were allowed to report this.

Do you mind explaining what you mean? I believe some smart HN commenters here stated that this administration would be the most transparent one ever, so I'm not entirely sure where the surprise would come from!

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#73

Post by lm28469 »

kamikazeturtles wrote: post #21
Terr_ wrote: post #6

For the visually-inclined, a graph of debt as a proportion of GDP [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S Of course, this doesn't show projections for what the future debt will become after the Republican's "BBB" package from a few months ago. [0] Yes, I know GDP is a flawed measure, but as long as its flaws are consistent over the years it is useful for scaling.

> Yes, I know GDP is a flawed measure, but as long as its flaws are consistent over the years it is useful for scaling. I don't think they can be considered consistent over the years. 20% of our GDP is healthcare and that's only going to grow as the population ages. I don't know what percent of the GDP is financial services but that'll probably also grow until we get something akin to 2008 again. Including healthcare…

It reminds me of the early days of the russian invasion when everyone was mocking russia for having the same gdp as spain. As it turns out having a small gdp doesn't mean much as long aas you have industries and resources.

France includes illegal drug traffic and illegal prostitution in its gdp too

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#74

Post by fzeroracer »

tmpz22 wrote: post #54
fzeroracer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even in that situation, politicians will try and play ball with the rich since the majority of them are on that same side. But having to implement emergency austerity measures in this scenario would just outright blow up the US economy. If the wealthy donors and corporate interests were smart they'd take a haircut on their wealth to try and stave off this issue but it seems we're mostly in a loot-and-raze cra…

The revolution wont be like the French revolution, itll be like the Handmaids Tale. A massive return to conservatism that manages to create a capitalist first theocracy loosely following American Calvinist principles (you have money because you are gods chosen, you are poor because you deserve it, for the poor here is this underclass to blame your problems on so that you dont aim your murder at the rich).

I don't think it'll work out like that, simply because my fellow Americans are still too used to being towards the top of the economic food chain. When the poor can no longer afford the bare minimum necessities and the middle class can no longer prop up their lifestyle I think people will get really, really mad. Like what happened with the healthcare CEO but on a much larger scale.

They've already been trying to sell some of the Calvanist dogma by trying to soften the blow of tariffs which by all indicators has been a massive failure of a messaging avenue, which is why they've moved towards trying to just ignore it instead.

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#75

Post by roenxi »

bithive123 wrote: post #30
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #19

How do you guys see this ending? I don't see this ending well but I can't imagine what happens. Seems unsustainable but nobody wants to deal with it.

On a long enough timeline we're all dead. In the near term, expect a lot of stupid decisions and huffing and puffing based on an ideological framing of what the national debt is. I am not an economist or finance guy, but I have noticed a lot of debt hysteria from people who don't seem to understand basic accounting. That is, one party's asset is another party's liability. You cannot have buying without selling, and s…

> That is, one party's asset is another party's liability...

The people who don't understand accounting actually seem to be pretty consistent on that point, because one of their other major complaints is inequality, ie, the people doing the lending have too many assets.

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#76

Post by Terr_ »

stock_toaster wrote: post #24
Terr_ wrote: post #6

For the visually-inclined, a graph of debt as a proportion of GDP [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S Of course, this doesn't show projections for what the future debt will become after the Republican's "BBB" package from a few months ago. [0] Yes, I know GDP is a flawed measure, but as long as its flaws are consistent over the years it is useful for scaling.

This graph[0] is also pretty interesting. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYGFGDQ188S

The important difference [0] is:

1. "Gross federal debt" includes the money which Congress borrowed from (future) Social Security recipients in order to pay for (current) tax-cuts and middle-east invasions and whatnot.

2. "Held by the public" excludes that portion, focusing on money borrowed from individuals/companies/other-countries that voluntarily lent their money to the US government.

So we should make our decisions based on the first one, unless someone is plotting to screw millions of American taxpayers out of the money they already paid as insurance-premiums. :p

[0] https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-gross-debt-versus-debt-held-p...

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#77

Post by epolanski »

pstuart wrote: post #64
epolanski wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point there will be a need for austerity measures and rising taxes, and whoever will do that will be very unpopular.

DOGE already started the austerity measures, and tariffs are taxes, so it's already in play. Popularity may be moot depending upon how things play out in the next couple years.

DOGE achieved little to nothing, tariffs don't compensate at all the raise in spending.

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#78

Post by epolanski »

coffeemug wrote: post #68
epolanski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Including healthcare and financial services in GDP figures feels out of place and unproductive You reminded me of something: a nurse in San Diego sleeping through her entire shift is more productive than half a dozen nurses in many third world countries working hard, because the way economists measure productivity is the $/hour output. People doing nothing in America are much more productive than people doing a lot…

In practice third world countries are very unproductive, and it's immediately visible to the naked eye. Many shops and restaurants have half a dozen people (or more!) taking the order and handling the check, there are entire extended families manning market stalls that barely sell anything, cabbies just hang out all day waiting for a ride, etc. You might be theoretically right, but I think that's not actually how it…

I have made a very specific example, you extrapolated some other data from it.

If you want a clearer comparison take Japan and tell me their average driver, nurse, teacher, policeman, factory worker, carpenter, painter, car mechanic, shop assistant, barista, bank clerk, etc does "less" or "less efficiently" than his american counter part.

Because there is a huge difference in measured productivity between them.

There might be, at times, some added productivity in US due to having more capital at disposal to adopt some technology, there might be some other benefits from being more risk prone in US? Sure. But that amounts for smallish differences and sure not for the immense gap measured by economic measures, which, at the end of the day, as explained with the initial sleeping nurse example is still $/hour.

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#79

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

fzeroracer wrote: post #74
tmpz22 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution wont be like the French revolution, itll be like the Handmaids Tale. A massive return to conservatism that manages to create a capitalist first theocracy loosely following American Calvinist principles (you have money because you are gods chosen, you are poor because you deserve it, for the poor here is this underclass to blame your problems on so that you dont aim your murder at the rich).

I don't think it'll work out like that, simply because my fellow Americans are still too used to being towards the top of the economic food chain. When the poor can no longer afford the bare minimum necessities and the middle class can no longer prop up their lifestyle I think people will get really, really mad. Like what happened with the healthcare CEO but on a much larger scale. They've already been trying to sell…

> I think people will get really, really mad.

Many of them will get really mad at whoever the person to blame points the finger at, regardless how plausible. But what good does getting really, really mad do, against a government with a functioning panopticon and an effective monopoly on force?

Until now, there has never been a time in human history when an oppressive government had the technical means to effectively surveil and control the population en masse in an automated fashion. It doesn't help that they have a monopoly on advanced weapons, lethal drones, and armed goons. As George Orwell put it: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever".

Re: US national debt reaches a record $37T, the Treasury Department reports

#80

Post by Terr_ »

emchammer wrote: post #18
Terr_ wrote: post #6

For the visually-inclined, a graph of debt as a proportion of GDP [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S Of course, this doesn't show projections for what the future debt will become after the Republican's "BBB" package from a few months ago. [0] Yes, I know GDP is a flawed measure, but as long as its flaws are consistent over the years it is useful for scaling.

It looks like it was under control for a while following World War II, but then from the early 1980s, it's hard for me not correlate the first derivative of the slope of that graph with presidential party.

> it's hard for me not correlate the first derivative of the slope of that graph

Many years ago I recall seeing a chart that annotated-out the party had the Presidency or majorities in either house of Congress along the "time" axis, but I'm not having any luck finding one. Sort of like this [0] except including a line for deficit/surplus by GDP. [1]

There are a lot of charts out there where the Presidency is shown, but IMO that plays in to a false narrative about who really has power over budgeting and how-much.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/02/03/single-pa...

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSGDA188S

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