Both sides refuse to reign this in. I've heard predictions as long as I've lived about the catastrophe this is going to cause. But, everything continues to chug right alone. Is it possible both sides don't fear this problem, and if so why?

I have no idea what the "end game" is.
We're in deep and it's unnerving.

What's worse, there's no end in sight.

what difference does it make, there's no intent to ever pay it off

We are at the point where the biggest budget item is the interest on this massive debt,and that is with low interest rates.This payment will become more burdensome.

My theory is:

very few people, especially government employees and elected leaders, give a shit, and that the number may as well be imaginary, and the threshold may as well be infinite, and the budget will never be balanced again, and they'll keep printing money and playing games on a worldwide level, and if we're very lucky it all won't crumble in our lifetimes.

No successful business or household on Earth can operate this way and survive, yet our Government somehow does, because there are so many Peters we can rob to pay the Pauls that it all gets lost and overlooked in the process, with everyone just kicking the can. It's one giant shell game, and I doubt more than a handful know the raw truth of it all.

...there's times I'm almost convinced 'national debt' is another of the Fairy Tales told by either the Brothers Grimm or Aesop....

when such as 'bitcoin' etc has such impact on so many and even with close study I just don't grasp the reality of it, and that since the early 50s I've been warned against the dreadful impact of 'the National Debt' when I learned MY personal share was $37.00, yet here we are....

IF there is no such thing as 'sovereign borders'
then how can there be such a thing as 'national debt'???

I have suspended my search for understanding the Reality of such as "national debt" and am currently seeking a really good cup of coffee.

Same thing is going to happen that all other countries have done on a paper currency based economy: declare a debt jubilee, and knock off at least two zeroes from the old currency unit and it then becomes the new currency unit; same thing the French did in January 1960. Old$100 = New$1.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Old$100 = New$1.

Inflation is a hidden tax.
Unless you do it all at once, and then people notice.

The dollar has lost about 97% of it's purchasing power (to inflation) since the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Our debt is secured by the fact that no one can really collect on it. It maintains it's value as the united states is generally seen as having a sound monetary policy. These two things check each other and generally keep the whole system in check.

Unfortunately, the soundness of our monetary policy is eroding both in the opinion of those who would hold our debt, and arguably in fact. a great example of this is the Russians and the Chinese talking about switching to rubles and yuan for trade over the dollar.

Further, we've managed to back ourselves in to a corner where no matter what we do at this point we're headed for a pretty severe crash; regardless of what we do. Because of our natural shortsightedness we're prolonging the time before that crash, but in doing so we're making the effects of that crash worse.

But understand the crash that is coming will be worse than any previous in history, and it will effect humanity as a whole. I'm honestly unsure if mankind will survive it, it may spark WW III.

So just use dollars as a short term medium of exchange, not as a long term store of value. Invest in assets that will ride on top of inflation, or better yet outdistance it.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Old$100 = New$1.

Inflation is a hidden tax.
Unless you do it all at once, and then people notice.

The dollar has lost about 97% of it's purchasing power (to inflation) since the creation of the Federal Reserve.

quote:

So just use dollars as a short term medium of exchange, not as a long term store of value. Invest in assets that will ride on top of inflation, or better yet outdistance it.

Yes, I understand that, and most people with enough investable assets try to do that. However, there are a lot of people whose savings is all or mostly in cash.

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
both sides don't fear this problem

Both sides figure the chickens will come home to roost on someone else's watch.

If interest rates go back to "Normal" or even a few percentage points- we'll spend more servicing the debt than is available for exspenses.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
both sides don't fear this problem

Both sides figure the chickens will come home to roost on someone else's watch.

Yeah, the problem is a just a 'political problem'... until it becomes a math problem no one can solve.
The can can be kicked down the road... until you run out of road. No one knows for sure when that will happen.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

The dialogue above is from Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises.

It’s often attributed to Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald, or misquoted as something like “At first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once.” But the theme is the same.

Nations go bankrupt in the same way. Banking collapses occur in the same way. Currency crises strike in the same way. They all happen gradually ... and then suddenly. Sometimes overnight.

At one time, the US had a coin with a face value of three cents. It was made of silver. How much silver can be had for three cents today? Invest wisely.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
So just use dollars as a short term medium of exchange, not as a long term store of value. Invest in assets that will ride on top of inflation, or better yet outdistance it.

Sorry for the thread drift, but please provide examples of the investments you suggest.

As for the OP, my theory is that once it got into the trillions the debt essentially became imaginary. In the sense that no one can imagine paying that back so we'll just have to keep coming up with other things to do.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
what difference does it make, there's no intent to ever pay it off

What difference does it make there's no ability to ever pay it off.?

At $22 TRILLION DOLLARS the United State spent an entire presidential term of office, four years, spending every penny of tax revenues on payment of the debt, there would be residual debt at the end of the process.

By this I mean the USG spends every penny of tax revenue simply on paying off the debt. No Medicare no social security, no Medicaid, no food stamps, no military spending, no servicing of the debt, nothing. Ahll forms of expenditure on the discretionary AND non-discretionary expenditures by the federal government.

In short the federal government closes and locks the doors and windows and goes out of business for four years. And there was still be debt at the end of the process.

So I've decided to stop worrying about the national debt. If it crashes we're all fucked so prepare to live with the economic consequences

quote:

So I've decided to stop worrying about the national debt. If it crashes we're all fucked so prepare to live with the economic consequences

How do you prepare?
Do you grow your own food, or have the ability?
If so, can you defend yourself against the looters who will know you have food when they don't?

Personally I think the attitude toward the National Debt can be described the same way we've described multiple counties having nukes....Mutually Assured Destruction. The US is the world's largest economy (and no I don't buy into the China being the biggest economy debate). If the US economy were to ever fail, for any reason, virtually every world economy would fail. So yes, we owe a lot of people a lot of money, that they essentially can't collect without destroying everything. Pretty lousy way to structure things, but that's where we're at.

Everyone hates the Fed. I think that they basically want everyone in some kind of debt. But...prior to the Thirn Federal Reserve Bank (there were 2 others before it), and after the second was disbanded, around abouts 1936 there were 4 major depressions prior to the Great Depression.

How does a nation grow its economy from 13 agrarian colonies to the largest economic power in the world without increasing its currency supply? The gold or silver standard is impossible to go back to. Answer that and fix the world. We don’t have a true FIAT currency. Ours is a hybrid business dollar. A dollar is worth whatever it can buy of a certain business. (Stock). A dollar may have been worth more, it it didn’t matter how many you had you couldn’t buy a computer. So money bas basically become with less, or more, depending on your perspective. Compare by it to a precious metal is a bit outdated because our economy and population has vastly out grown by geometric proportion the amount of precious metals available.

In my opinion this all started when we went off the gold standard.
When the government said the good faith of the US government meant more to back the dollar than the gold we have in reserve.
As long as we can keep printing money this will continue. As long as some one or country's will still continue to buy our debt this will continue.
At some point this will all have to stop. Will it be as bad a what is happening in Venezuela who knows.
The one thing I do know, when the US government can no longer meet its obligation to not only its creditors but the obligations to the people we will become a third wold nation fast. There will be no one to bail us out and world economy's will collapse.
My advice is to get out of debt as soon as you can, have some tangible assets, some thing that can be traded for other goods and services.
Learn to be as self sufficient as possible.