191–200 of 233 posts
>As a share of federal revenues, federal interest payments rose to 18.5 percent by the end of last year, exceeding the previous high set in 1991.
https://www.pgpf.org/programs-and-projects/fiscal-policy/mon...
This still isn’t too bad compared to other countries, also, most of the AI industry profits are still yet to be fully realized.
I think you're being sarcastic, but can't quite tell. If you're not - this is the 10th worst ratio in the world. The only countries worse are: Venezuela, Japan, Sudan, Singapore, Eritrea, Bahrain, Greece, Lebanon, and Italy. The difference has historically been that we've been able to exploit the dollar, export our inflation, and so on - but those times are fading.
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The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic co…
Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt?
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What does it buy
Much less for the money than in western europe--even when limiting the analysis to systems like schools and transit that are publicly operated in both places.
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> I reject your argument. It is easier to see when comparing the cost of goods. It is not a fact of life that goods in the US cost 2x the price of equivalent goods in the UK. Services aren't goods manufactured in a single place. Delivery of healthcare services in the U.S. versus U.K. reflect myriad factors that are rooted in differences between Americans and British people. Americans wouldn't tolerate the trade-offs…
> Americans wouldn't tolerate the trade-offs in the British healthcare system I do not believe this is true. Keep in mind that the UK has universal healthcare (NHS) but also has a private healthcare system. The private healthcare system can be used to prioritize speed, comfort, elective procedures, ... Around 12% of the UK population has private medical insurance [1]. > It's a policy determination to subsidize drug c…
In the UK, 61% of people report being satisfied with their healthcare, according to OECD. In the US, it’s 75%. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/health-at-a-glance-2025...
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>governments don't literally just print money, but sells bonds at market rates no, sometimes they literally do exactly that. google for quantitative easing. that's what it is and it's a tool that can always be used by monetarily sovereign countries to bring bond interest rates down by as much as they want. insolvency thus isnt possible.
> insolvency thus isnt possible. You might want to look up Zimbabwe or Germany (after WW1). When your money becomes worth less than the paper it's printed on... So, it's possible, and has happened before.
when I said "monetarily sovereign" I think you probably didnt understand what that meant.
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The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic co…
Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt?
I’m open to hearing why you think @bilsbie’s list is valid. I’m skeptical, and I’ll offer some reasons why, but please convince me, I will listen. Is there a credible source for the claim that money is being spent studying the effects of yoga on goats? I’ve looked a bunch already, and the consensus seems clear that the claim is simply not true.
The empty buildings claim seems mis-stated. The actual wording from the Office of Management and Budget is “empty or underutilized” (emphasis mine). The US government’s real estate portfolio is well over a trillion dollars in holdings, and half a trillion in yearly spending, so this “underutilized” concern amounts to in the neighborhood of less than one half of one percent of spending. If that’s true, I’m absolutely amazed it’s that efficient! Corporate real estate isn’t that efficient. The government manages almost a million military and civilian buildings. Hundreds of buildings come and go every single day. Is it possible this “empty or underutilized” claim is temporary and sometimes unavoidable due to move in/out times, shuffling, and planning? Does it count if the figure includes buildings that are listed for sale and not selling? What about buildings that are held as investment and sell for more than they would have if they’d sold the moment they went empty? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people managing the country’s real estate portfolio. Do you know what they need to do to get from the presumably 99.6% utilization to guaranteed 100% utilization at all times?
The smoking claim is real but dramatized for political effect - it’s simply an anti-smoking campaign & survey. Do you know the healthcare costs of smoking in the US? A quick google says direct economic costs in 2018 were ~$240 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering more than half of that. That’s taxpayer money, money you’re paying to cover the predictable effects of other people’s poor life choices, and that cost is literally fifty thousand times larger than the anti-smoking campaign @bilsbie complained about - five hundred of your dollars of medical care for every single penny of hipster music whatever.
If the ‘hipster’ anti-smoking campaign was covered purely by taxes on the sale of cigarettes, would that make it okay for you?
The $281 billion “managed to misplace” claim is a mis-characterization. This is the amount of money that didn’t have all proper paperwork, it was not all lost or misplaced. It is “payments that did not meet statutory or administrative criteria”.
The music and cows claim appears to be false. Google mentions the University of Leicester (not in the US) had a “Moosic Study” in 2001 (BTW, come on, that’s funny), and the University of Wisconsin Madison did some trials in 1930 that did not cost $1M.
The fish alcohol claim also appears to be false, an exaggerated carry over of a report from 1975 by Senator William Proxmire, who was the creator of the “Golden Fleece Awards”. Have you read the history of the Golden Goose Awards? It’s seriously worth the 2 minutes. https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history
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> insolvency thus isnt possible. You might want to look up Zimbabwe or Germany (after WW1). When your money becomes worth less than the paper it's printed on... So, it's possible, and has happened before.
neither of those countries owed money in their own currency. when I said "monetarily sovereign" I think you probably didnt understand what that meant.
If a country ever decides to use your 'monetary sovereignty' they might as well just stop playing their debts as any holder of the debt will see that as the same thing. They're not getting their money back, or when they do they get it in a currency now worth a lot less. At this point you can say you're still solvent in the same way as you can say you did repay all your debts.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_R...
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I think you're being sarcastic, but can't quite tell. If you're not - this is the 10th worst ratio in the world. The only countries worse are: Venezuela, Japan, Sudan, Singapore, Eritrea, Bahrain, Greece, Lebanon, and Italy. The difference has historically been that we've been able to exploit the dollar, export our inflation, and so on - but those times are fading.
Why would anybody be sarcastic on hackernews??? Is this reddit
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Even if we just ignore inflation and other issues, there's still a hard limit because governments don't literally just print money, but sells bonds at market rates. As confidence in the economic stability declines the interest rates the government is required to offer on those bonds trends upward. So right now even 10 year treasuries are selling with just under 5% interest. As a result we're now paying $1.4 trillion…
>governments don't literally just print money, but sells bonds at market rates no, sometimes they literally do exactly that. google for quantitative easing. that's what it is and it's a tool that can always be used by monetarily sovereign countries to bring bond interest rates down by as much as they want. insolvency thus isnt possible.
Maybe you can argue that if the alternative was complete insolvency then the Fed would feel obligated to comply, but you find yourself in a scenario where you're choosing between immediate economic collapse and rapid economic collapse.