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

nytimes.com

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

#191

Post by IAmGraydon »

myvoiceismypass wrote: post #185
CursedSilicon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why remind people of the lies? We all knew they were lies. And the people who believed the lies will not have their minds changed There's a 30% bedrock of America that appears to be simply broken beyond repair. That's his permanent voting and approval base

Nearly 50% (49.8) of all voters were either duped by the lies or totally okay with the lies (or some combo of both). Over 77 million Americans.

You've probably heard the saying "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." Well, it's true. And the good times have created many, many weak men. The next part is going to be here sooner than most think.

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

#192

Post by conartist6 »

krapp wrote: post #166
conartist6 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Half the country does have such a vision, and they're getting exactly what they want. The question is why the other half can't seem to do shit about it.

The system as it works is made to cause partisan balance to stay close to the competitive 50/50

That may make it seem like nothing every changes, and much wind is spent on it. Real change is often so deep and slow that it just isn't even news. That's because politicians don't usually lead, they follow

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

#193

Post by khriss »

skeledrew wrote: post #162
Gud wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They still hold the advantage no matter what. If diplomacy doesn't work, they can sanction or tariff or impose export controls. Or they can invade.

Hmm let's examine how well the US sanctions against China and Russia are working, shall we?

Forget those, how well are the vaunted US sanctions working against Iran?

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

#194

Post by khriss »

0xy wrote: post #14
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 East Wing argument is such a weird hill to die on. Even Obama era staffers admitted it was embarrassing to welcome foreign dignitaries to a muddy patch of grass rather than a fit for purpose room. It's also majority private sector funded, and numerous admins have made substantial changes to the White House. Bush 2 and Obama made substantial renovations to the White House, as did Clinton. Trump has a massive and g…

> It's also majority private sector funded,

Really? Wasn't it supposed to be 100% funded by Trump's cronies, who of course were doing so completely out of the goodness of their hearts. Why did that shift to 'majority' private funding? Also, if the funding is so on the up and up, why has Trump refused to release a full audit?

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

#195

Post by snowwrestler »

frogperson wrote: post #28
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.

Citizens United ruined the great american experiment. if you have seen the chart of campaign financing since CU, you would understand. Politicians have zero need to represent citizens because they know unlimited funds are available for marketing to keep/earn your seat. America simply is no longer a democracy or representative democracy.

Citizen's United was decided in 2010. Hillary Clinton out-spent Trump by about $500 million in 2016 and lost.

The reality is that spending can keep a candidate from losing an election for dumb reasons (e.g. lack of name recognition), but it can't win an election by itself. There are plenty of examples of the bigger spender losing, both before and after Citizen's United.

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

#196

Post by 6510 »

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #170
skeledrew wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are we living in the same reality? The US can't even keep a single strait safe right now against a fairly "weak" state. We don't have the political willpower for American servicemen to die in defensive wars like Ukraine or to hold back ISIS in Afghanistan. How, exactly , are we going to demand sovereignties like China or the EU give us trillions of dollars?

foreign gov treasury holdings are only some 9% (mostly Japan, UK, China, Belgium and Canada)

As a serious country you can just keep servicing the bonds with bonds. If the government is... well.... it starts to look more like one of those poker websites where you cant cash out?

The world is full of similar but poorly organized ..., trump is doing one hell of a job uniting them. It seems a lot like that outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond.

I combine some "hallucinated" numbers into a table here

https://chat.deepseek.com/share/bzam2y198qps3l2z4x

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

#197

Post by otterley »

skeledrew wrote: post #103

And who's going to hold the US responsible for repayment? Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying, whether through structuring it as some economic package or just straight up saying go suck it. The former's been done before (1933); maybe eventually we'll see the latter, if a nation has the balls to ask. And talking about it is pretty pointless, like talking about how wet y…

> Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying

It does not. The Fourteenth Amendment forbids that. Section 4:

"The validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned."

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

#198

Post by otterley »

Timon3 wrote: post #143
qeternity wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still people, not money, who votes for them over and over again…

And the primary reason for people voting like this is the ungodly sums of money spent on elections, combined with the media apparatus built up by the right. I don't think any democracy could survive Fox News. Unfortunately the global right is colluding to export this concept across the globe...

If money won elections, then the outcome of every election could be predicted with accuracy based solely on the relative spending by or on behalf of each candidate.

In reality, that's not how it works. There are countless examples of candidates who outspent their opponents and lost.

Money gets you reach. It doesn't get you guaranteed results.

Besides, the voters don't get any of that money, nor do they even know most of the time who got more financial support. They'd be insulted by even the slightest suggestion that money is driving their vote.

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

#199

Post by bijowo1676 »

otterley wrote: post #197
skeledrew wrote: post #103

And who's going to hold the US responsible for repayment? Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying, whether through structuring it as some economic package or just straight up saying go suck it. The former's been done before (1933); maybe eventually we'll see the latter, if a nation has the balls to ask. And talking about it is pretty pointless, like talking about how wet y…

> Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying It does not. The Fourteenth Amendment forbids that. Section 4: "The validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned."

US can always print currency to cover existing debt, the problem is convincing investors to keep lending money to the US and keep buying US bonds

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

#200

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

rbanffy wrote: post #138
epolanski wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true globally, not just in the US, and that's why global debt keeps spiralling. But I still find the argument "it doesn't matter if you're going 200 or 300 or 500 mph" completely asinine. It does, and it makes an enormous difference when the debt is so big in absolute terms. You keep forcing an equality that's not there. At the end of the day it's one specific administration that brought the largest tax cuts…

> and that's why global debt keeps spiralling. Yes, but if the dollar collapses and is replaced by a new reserve currency while other countries have debts in dollars, they win and the US loses. Only the US loses, keep in mind. It’ll be the first time the US experiences that side of the stick.

If the US suffers severely the rest of the world will collapse. There's no scenario in which that doesn't happen. Everything is interdepedant and many non US countries (like Europe, Japan, China) depend heavily on the US.
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