Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

fortune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 234 posts

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#21

Post by jbm »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #7
dmckeon wrote: post #5

Congress-people have few incentives to restrain or reduce the national debt. There is plenty of talk, but little action. The event horizon may be distant, but the pull is inexorable. What could possibly solve this? Could we give representatives and senators bonuses for spending less and taxing more?

Not sure about that solution, but we could elect representation that does the right thing(s), and not just the thing(s) that get them reelected.

We could choose, for instance, to restrict people to single terms. I don't think long term exposure to power is actually that helpful, and it creates brand names and political careers, none of which really seems to be that helpful.

I think restricting the presidency to 2 terms is actually quite positive, and I wish we had a similar system in Canada (although generally it works out to be more or less the same)

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#22

Post by drawkward »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #14

I would take a bet that the U.S. remains a super power longer than Nassim Taleb remains alive. He will go into a literal ‘death spiral’ before the US goes into a figurative ‘death spiral’

Ah, the old,

>God is dead.

-Nietzsche

>Nietzsche is dead.

-God

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#24

Post by nickff »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #16

We owe a bit more than 1 year's GDP. Most families that own a house owe substantially more than 1 year's income. Last time we reduced the annual deficit to zero, the usual debt hawks all reversed their position and said "this is terrible". We've demonstrated in my lifetime that we can do this. The fact that "we" don't want to right now has more to do with Republican attitudes towards taxation than anything else. MMT…

Comparing a government's debt to its GDP is like comparing a couple's debt to their employers' total revenues. The country's government doesn't own all its residents' property, and is usually unable take their income streams.

MMT says a lot of things, but people only seem to follow it when convenient.

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#26

Post by nocoiner »

beachtaxidriver wrote: post #4

Isn't the "miracle" just a persistent unexpectedly higher level of inflation, over a long period of time, doing a soft-default and screwing over long bongholders? That seems like the most painless way out.

Yes, either that, or a relatively stable fiscal picture coupled with moderate economic growth. Keep the deficit low-ish, and keep posting the growth numbers that have marked most of the last decade, and the debt situation looks a lot more manageable after not all that long.

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#28

Post by panarky »

dmckeon wrote: post #5

Congress-people have few incentives to restrain or reduce the national debt. There is plenty of talk, but little action. The event horizon may be distant, but the pull is inexorable. What could possibly solve this? Could we give representatives and senators bonuses for spending less and taxing more?

The clue that this guy is a right-wing crank is that he blames the problem on "Congress extending the debt limit".

The root cause of the problem happens long before the meaningless semiannual debt limit ritual.

The root cause is that Congress approved more spending, while also approving tax cuts, so that the spending isn't funded by tax revenue.

The whole debt limit fiasco doesn't fix this fundamental problem. The debt limit nonsense is just coming along later, after all the spending and tax cut legislation has been signed into law, and threatening to default on the nation's obligations.

It's like trying to solve the problem of leaving the barn doors open and letting the horses escape by coming along after the horses are gone and threatening to burn down the barn.

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#29

Post by mullingitover »

no_wizard wrote: post #15

Does this correctly factor in that currently the US is the western worlds de facto military, more or less? Because as long as we hold that position I don’t imagine the US government will be shut out of the debt markets at all. This is part of the problem I wager is there is still enormous incentive to keep the scheme afloat by other nations too

The dollar is still backed by a heavy metal, it just switched from gold to plutonium.

Re: Nassim Taleb says the U.S. is in a ‘death spiral’ over government debt

#30

Post by astrodust »

happytiger wrote: post #13

Let’s answer this man with his own damn quote : > History is useful for the thrill of knowing the past, and for the narrative (indeed), provided it remains a harmless narrative. One should learn under severe caution. History is certainly not a place to theorize or derive general knowledge, nor is it meant to help in the future, without some caution. We can get negative confirmation from history, which is invaluable,…

The real black swan event was him coming up with the concept of black swan events. Everything else he's done has been increasingly ridiculous.
Post reply on HN