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For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

fortune.com

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Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#21

Post by tencentshill »

rayiner wrote: post #6
sharemywin wrote: post #2

good thing the current administration was basically elected to fix it. how's that going?

The Associated Press doesn’t list that as one of his key campaign promises: https://apnews.com/projects/trump-campaign-promise-tracker/ It also doesn’t appear on the ALL CAPS list of campaign priorities: https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/ . The word “debt” doesn’t appear anywhere in the document. And the word “deficit” appears just once in the context of the trade deficit. Trump was the first candidate to release…

A more detailed version of the policies behind this list can be found here

https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeade...

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#22

Post by QuarterReptile »

sharemywin wrote: post #2

good thing the current administration was basically elected to fix it. how's that going?

Deficit spending is one place where the major parties are in complete agreement. So it just wastes political capital, unless you see Thomas Massie somehow amassing a majority of Congressmen interested in his issues.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#23

Post by roughly »

cineticdaffodil wrote: post #17
oa335 wrote: post #15

History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Roman emperors starting with Marcus Aurelius began devaluing their currency to pay for endless war, and to a lesser extent, free bread; i believe that is the principle cause of the decline of Roman empire.

Empire is a structure that exist strangely disconnected from the country that spawned it to keep the lights at the cost of other countries. Just imagine if the us empire and its institutions, war machine parted ways with the country and its population. It would not be as hard as one imagines, but would reveal a country that has benefitted in parts by snuggling up to the imperial maxhine, while other paets where aband…

> Just imagine if the us empire and its institutions, war machine parted ways with the country and its population.

I suspect we may not have to imagine this for long. The DOGEing of the federal government pulled a lot of the benefits of the union away from the people, and the recent political maneuvering around voting districts and other inter-state power contests suggest that the notion of the US as one nation and one people with a shared set of values is increasingly at odds with the facts on the ground. We have the most powerful military in the world (probably?), but in terms of the domestic situation, the federalized model is under incredible stress and the bargains that held it together seem to be failing or being intentionally broken. Your description of the empire leaving the country behind - or vice versa - feels less far-fetched than it would have a generation ago.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#24

Post by QuarterReptile »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #10
rayiner wrote: post #8

America can’t solve this problem democratically. Trump has taught the GOP you can win elections through targeted bribery (e.g. No Taxes on Tips), avoiding hard decisions (e.g. no cuts to entitlements), and distracting people with expensive spectacle. Meanwhile, Democrats are a collection of interest groups held together by patronage. In the recent election, Democrats were knee-capped because inflation made it impossi…

The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy

The overnight fix, to be perfectly clear, would require illegal firing of federal judges and getting rid of the filibuster, just to start fixing.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#26

Post by UltraSane »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #10
rayiner wrote: post #8

America can’t solve this problem democratically. Trump has taught the GOP you can win elections through targeted bribery (e.g. No Taxes on Tips), avoiding hard decisions (e.g. no cuts to entitlements), and distracting people with expensive spectacle. Meanwhile, Democrats are a collection of interest groups held together by patronage. In the recent election, Democrats were knee-capped because inflation made it impossi…

The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy

Taxes can always be raised before going bankrupt.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#27

Post by extraduder_ire »

jjk166 wrote: post #20

There's nothing particularly special about the debt being larger than GDP. GDP is not income and debt is paid over time. For context, China has a Government Debt to GDP ratio of 96%, the UK is at 94%, France at 116%, Japan is at 263%.

It is a popular benchmark for military spending though.

Debt to tax revenue would make more sense as a metric.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#28

Post by bdangubic »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #10
rayiner wrote: post #8

America can’t solve this problem democratically. Trump has taught the GOP you can win elections through targeted bribery (e.g. No Taxes on Tips), avoiding hard decisions (e.g. no cuts to entitlements), and distracting people with expensive spectacle. Meanwhile, Democrats are a collection of interest groups held together by patronage. In the recent election, Democrats were knee-capped because inflation made it impossi…

The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy

we should give up 765 things first before entitlements - starting with cutting Department of War budget by about 90% and go from there

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#29

Post by jpadkins »

noir_lord wrote: post #11
fallingfrog wrote: post #9

The debt can be inflated away (which is the only plausible way this is going to go) but it might cause the dollar to be dropped as the world reserve currency. I don't know for sure what happens in that case.. I suspect that imports would become enormously more expensive, which would reveal the catastrophic erosion in worker rights and pay due to neoliberalism. People would be suddenly aware of how much less they are…

> I don't know for sure what happens in that case.. One thing would be that GDP per Capita would fall to something like Germany (and I'm been kind there assuming it would only drop that much) there isn't inherently anything about the US that says it's GDP per capita has to be ~50% higher than Germany.

> One thing would be that GDP per Capita would fall

Why? What is the mechanism that links being the reserve currency and (real?) GDP per capita? I can see why being the reserve currency is an advantage for the finical sector, maybe international trade. But I don't understand how if the world stopped trading in dollars and switched to gold or Bitcoin or some basket of currencies, GDP per capita would be majorly impacted.

Re: For first time since World War II, US national debt now larger than its economy

#30

Post by mrguyorama »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #22
sharemywin wrote: post #2

good thing the current administration was basically elected to fix it. how's that going?

Deficit spending is one place where the major parties are in complete agreement. So it just wastes political capital, unless you see Thomas Massie somehow amassing a majority of Congressmen interested in his issues.

Absolutely insane. The data has been clear since at least Reagan that Democrats tax and spend, while Republicans just spend.

Several trillion dollars of the debt comes just from Trump reducing taxes for rich people and companies.

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