U.S. Debt Hits $40T as America's Borrowing Binge Continues

Post by skeledrew » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

Gud wrote: post #150

skeledrew wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody buys new gov bonds; non-gov debt rating stops making sense. Sanctions, black-listing and potentially more for anyone trying to play cute and do anything that "disadvantages the US". The rest of the world is forced to comply in enforcing it all, because nobody has backing power to stand against the US in any way.

Perhaps true 20 years ago, today I'm not so sure. From across the pond, the USA looks like a has been who relies a lot on old merits. The world got bombed to pieces 80 years ago, but has step by step rebuilt itself. The advantage the US had has been squandered by ineffective leadership.

Post by 0xy » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #117

0xy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden's infra plan was $550bn in new spending, which was offset in only $50bn of new revenue and $110bn of spending reductions. So, on net, it was massively inflationary and toasted the budget. That was just one proposal with half a trillion.

Would you care to provide a citation for that? According to any of the reporting I can find, the Inflation Reduction Act: "This bill would raise $737 billion in revenue while spending $437 billion. The remaining $300 billion would go toward deficit reduction." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan#Inflati... This is pretty much the same story with every major policy proposal from the Biden admi…

Post by krapp » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

conartist6 wrote: post #15

rhelz wrote: post #3

By the time Trump leaves office, the whole federal government will be completely trashed, up to and including the East Wing of the White House being torn down to a hole in the ground. I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance.

The challenge now is that we have to have a vision for what we want to build.

Post by tpm » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

skeledrew wrote: post #161

tpm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how any of this works. And anyway, most US bonds are held by US domestic entities.

Doesn't really matter whether domestic or international, company or country. Anthropic got black-listed for not giving unrestricted access to their AI tech. India was slapped with an extra 25% tariff just for trading with Russia. Venezuela was invaded and its president snatched for not playing nice for US interests for too long. The list goes on and on throughout history. What the US wants, the US gets.

Post by Tadpole9181 » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

skeledrew wrote: post #147

DANmode wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> talking about it is pretty pointless, like talking about how wet you'll get swimming in a pool. Until the pool runs out of funding to do to replace the evaporated water.

It'll never run since they have the power to demand that it be kept sufficiently full.