BillHubbard
1054
29
5
Is your country rich, or just pretending to be?
Apr 29, 2025 11:29 PM
BillHubbard
1054
29
5
Is your country rich, or just pretending to be?
eppykaze
I thought Canada was higher than that, guess we've been doing a better job paying it off than I thought.
Timberwolves4ever
Japan. Sheesh.
BakingMaybes
Am I the only one that thought it was pizza?
betelgeux
I've been watching Japan for a while with some concern.
pierceeze
Who do they owe? Other countries?
76000BatteryLlamas
and themselves
eion85
Most of the US debt is owned by people and organizations within the US. A significant part of it is money parts of the Federal government owe to other parts of the federal government.
UWAGAGABLAGABLAGABA
It's all fictional numbers anyway
Gindipple
until you start paying more at the grocery store from inflation based on these fictional numbers
SwissScars
based on your study, your feelings or your general distrust?
Whyyeah
yes
bippityboppitybuttsex
Gov't debt is an investment in the society... if the gov't runs a surplus, it took too much money out of the economy and slows it down, a gov't surplus is a taking of economic output... On the other hand, gov't debt is an investment into that economy, and, depending on if whether you can borrow in your own currency, is an opportunity to buy growth.
The more important thing is not surplus/debt, but what the money was spent on... was it infrastructure, schools, hospitals, mass transit...
bippityboppitybuttsex
... these are items that make a thriving free market possible...
It also depends on the timing... did the gov't go into debt when the country was at economic capacity, or did it go into debt when its economic activity was low and they were in recession and excess capacity was idle and then activated for a public good?
Not all debt is bad, but it needs to be used carefully.
GrandmasterSpank
It highly depends on what your definition is of things like 'the economy'. Government debt can be the result of not taking enough money from the top layer of the 'economy'.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Sure, but remember, reducing the amount of liquidity in a market is a method to slow the economy... so, if an economy is superheated, spiking taxes to remove that excess liquidity is more effective than just increasing interest rates, which has been the totality of US monetary policy during inflationary pressures, since WW2.
The reality is there are a lot of string to pull and we accidentally separated monetary and fiscal policy, it was a mistake.
GrandmasterSpank
Yeah but putting money in stocks and property doesn't make it liquid. It just gets hoarded into oblivion, generating money which crates it's own form of debt which then has to be realized by actual labour (or intellectual property) on a later date. Spiking taxes is not needed if you make sure the 'economy' doesn't superheat in the first place. The mistake made is that a fraction of the population doesn't pay taxes and then generates money out of thin air.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Right, but when gov't spends money it invests in the country, building bridges, highways, mass transit, trams, monorails, segway speedways, schools, fountains... it is for a public good (some 36% of all bridges in the US need major repair)...
What we do instead is we give tax cuts to billionaires and turn public services into fees that the working class has to pay for services their tax dollars used to provide... remember, this isn't just about spending money.
yamamasyamaha
Pretty sure we could make investments in society without 30% of my federal taxes going to pay interest ;)
bippityboppitybuttsex
Who is that interest paid to?
yamamasyamaha
I assume that question is rhetorical. But since the answer All kinds of people and institutions the world over, I’m not sure how paying out interest to millionaires and billionaires and huge companies and Europeans and Asians is going to fit into your argument that I’m somehow benefiting more from this than from havint that money in my pocket, or by putting that money to other use.
bippityboppitybuttsex
The bulk of that money is paid to the US Govt and to Americans... 18.3% is debt from the US Gov't to itself... another 42.1% is owed to Americans who own Treasuries (if your 401K is bond-heavy, it is this); 3% is held by the US Civil service retirement fund... another 9% is owned by the social security trust fund... another 3.3% is owed to the US Military retirement fund...
In total, about 25% is paid to other nations, cuz they used to trust us (Japan had 3.9%, China 3.8%, etc...)
yamamasyamaha
You’re right, infinite debt is unequivocally good