Hegseth blew 90 billion in a month on "fruit basket stands" and steaks that somehow work out to $500 each, even when you buy $200000 worth. Like come on. Nothing makes sense. This is one month.
Extreme fraud and abuse. The wealthy are raiding public dollars before they collapse it again. It makes perfect sense. Don’t worry though. They won’t face any repercussions. It’s not like they are poor and black or trans.
It's just such a slap in the face lie too. I wonder where it really went. I think some people are starting to get that condition Germans did during inflation, where they lost concept of how large a number is because of all the 0's they had to keep adding. Thanks bathroom reader for that. Lol
Invested in apocalypse shelters. Crypto accounts. Offshore bank accounts. Foreign companies. Stashed with loyalist followers. Trump has been involved with the Russian mob/government for years and he’s following putins gameplan to try this dictator thing out so I’m sure they’ve given him tips on how to hide his stolen funds. After all he’s earned it. He’s destroyed America for them.
i really think the MO for private equity, ie buy a company, load it up with debt to fund the purchase, extract everything of value, and then declare bankruptcy for the purchased company, is exactly what’s being done to the usa. it’s what was done with russia in the 1990s too.
I have not myself - could you expand a bit on that? Is it more of a emergent sort of behavior or are there (supposed, active) malicious actors? Or both, guess they're not necessarily mutually exclusive.
If you look at Trump’s track record, that’s what he’s done in the past. Buy businesses with loads of high risk debt, default, and leave vendors and business partners on the hook with unpaid bills while he lawyers/daddy’s moneys his way out of accountability for the ship he sunk.
These guys work like mobile piggy banks for papa Putin. Russia needs more money? Throw one of these guys out a window and conveniently confiscate all of his assets.
america has possibly the highest standard of living in the world and americans are already extremely violent. if things get 1990s russia level bad the people responsible are going to have a very very bad time
The large majority of people who talk a big game about needing guns to rebel against the government shit themselves bc they're scared of trans people and love licking the boots of tyrannical governments. The people who'd be responsible for a Russia like collapse would find an army of easily led morons in those people.
the people obsessed with overthrowing the government are LARPers who get to endlessly talk shit because they know they will never have to put their money where their mouth is as long as america remains prosperous and stable. if the US experiences economic and state collapse on par with russia in the 1990s it won't be the fat diabetic boomers with lifted trucks and 30 guns causing trouble
It pisses me off so badly. Everyone in my life, who I think are well intentioned people, seem to find something really fuckin funny about the Epstein files and the Iran war. There is nothing funny about it. Our president was party to decades of horrific sexual abuse and is starting a war killing thousands of civilians to distract from it. There is NOTHING funny about that.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you! So sick of having to scroll through a thousand 'tired of winning yet?" bullshit posts and the like. We've all heard them a thousand times and it contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation.
I don't mind the free markets. I think we need a variety of shops and merchants. I just think they should be owned by their employees. Capitalism is just rent-seeking all the way down, and then the richest shitheads just finance conspiracy theorist bullshitters and fascists.
Is govt borrowing trillions and spending beyond their means now a criticism if free market capitalism? I guess if you only know one line you've got to throw it out there.
The comment I'm replying to is literally about private equity and how that strategy is seemingly being applied to the US government to eventually buy it up pennies on the dollar once it all blows up
How about we use our reading skills instead of just making asinine comments, yeah?
The alternative is literally millions upon millions of people on the streets and dying. Leave it to a fucking conservative to be like, "no, it's the middlemen we should protect."
No they don’t. The vast majority of PE “exits” are sold to other PE firms or other public / private companies. You’re talking about extreme outlier cases - very very few PE firms want to see bankruptcy or closure. The vast majority make money by growing their businesses and selling them.
Profitability isn't necessarily tied to growing a business anymore. That ship has sailed. You can create additional valuation without creating foundational growth.
You may be in the industry, but you clearly aren't paying attention.
Actually no, you’re wrong. The era of financially engineering value is over, and there is more of a premium than ever on growing the business. This has been common sentiment for 2+ years.
Bankruptcy could enable restructuring or eliminating those pesky entitlement programs and leave an annual budget surplus so maybe you’re on to something.
>The U.S. Treasury’s borrowing showed no signs of slowing as the U.S. headed deeper into fiscal year 2026, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reporting that another $1 trillion was added to the federal deficit in the first five months of the year.
>The monthly budget review from the CBO, updated to February 2026 and released yesterday, showed that the government is estimated to have borrowed $308 billion last month alone.
>Of course, with more borrowing comes higher interest costs on the debt. Between October 2025 (when the 2026 fiscal year started) and February, the Treasury spent an additional $31 billion on net interest on public debt, compared to the prior year. As a result, in just five months, the Treasury forked out a total of $433 billion to service public debt, which is now nearing $38.9 trillion.
>The CBO said that outlays for interest increased “because the debt was larger than it was in the first five months of fiscal year 2025 and because of higher long-term interest rates.” It added: “Declines in short-term interest rates partially mitigated the overall rise in interest payments.”
>Despite the eye-watering sums, the deficit was actually an improvement on last year’s borrowing. For the same period (October 2024 to February 2025), the government needed to borrow an additional $142 billion compared to this year’s figure.
Nah Justin Hammer is actually a genius himself, just not as smart as Tony Stark. Elon is the guy who yells 'HE BUILD IT IN A CAVE WITHA BOX OF SCRAPS!!!' in Iron Man 1
this should be a meme line that just gets tacked onto every single goddamn it's all falling apart story - "I hope at least we get a Thunderdome." I hear they're gonna build us a Thunderdome! something...
As usual there's a George Carlin bit that describes this quite well. "When I get finished masturbating I'm going to have a little something to show for it"
The trickle down part in any period of difficulty in the economy is misery for the lower 50th percentile of the folks. People at the top don't experience the misery at all. They actually gain from it.
No no no, you don’t understand. I didn’t drink too much and over indulge, it must have been a minority that roofied me which caused all of this so we should be mad at them!
Already started its difficult for Americans to see as its in their currency. Currencies are up against the USD for the past 1 year. That is your purchasing power decreasing in US and our interest in buying US stocks/bonds etc dying.
AUD / USD 13.70%
CAD / USD 6.30%
CHF / USD 13.14%
GBP / USD 4.41%
EUR / USD 7.28%
People keep talking about DXY but its weighted overly towards Euro/GBP/Yen and wont show the issues with the USD as they are debt laden as well. Look at a country with a modern economy and lower Debt to GDP like Aus for a truer picture.
Mmm not a hangover…more like a fatty liver, where we’re hoping the future offers a miracle pill that cures decades of partying and neglect.
Many people believe military superiority is more sustainable than attempting to balance the budget…I guess we’ll see what happens at the end of the cycle!
Russia has shown that it's viable for decades even after the heart stops beating.
America has so much they can squeeze out of its citizens even now. If Republicans stay in power the lower 90% of Americans should start getting ready for austerity being permanent for them and the grift being permanent for the Epstein class.
Sure, but cleaning up the mess will once again fall on the Democrats. Once they do voters will punish them for being adults not letting the children eat non-stop candy.
The cycle will repeat until education in this country is vastly improved.
The great irony is we didn't even really get the candy [read: discretionary spending]. With 63% of it going towards military/homeland security but just 4% on education.
The Epstein class ate the majority of all the candy and now the children are going to find out what the phrase "forced austerity" even means.
yeah, and dems will spend 4 years doing their best to fix this god damn mess, and somehow, it will all be bidens fault and they will just elect donald trump again from his grave
For every day, the average American citizen does not reign in their government, they are assuring their children and children's children will be paying for the mistake that is Donald Trump.
He doesn't even have to rape them to ruin their lives.
Hound your local politicians. Boycott the businesses that support the regime. Genral strike. Protest. You know, all the stuff that the average American is not doing.
But I believe the general population isn't all that upset with Trump. But what do I know...
I wouldn’t worry too much about that. When America is drinking it’s solidly Republican but it’s Democrat when it wakes up in the morning. That’s a problem for future America 😇
I mean only if people stop investing in US debt, every time we need to borrow money everyone with money to lend sprints to the window to throw their money at us
I was wondering the same thing. Is there a realistic or possible scenario where this could burst? Like what would happen if multiple countries demand their debts paid back at the same time?
I’m genuinely at a loss at how we are going to afford this war. We are burning through an average of 160 patriots and 12-13 THAADS a day in Iran. Granted, that pace has slowed but it takes 18 months to build new ones.
Most of this stock was built before COVID. You know, before gas, tariffs, inflation etc. kicked in. All o f this stuff is going to be insanely expensive to continue manufacturing and restocking.
If we keep this up for 6 months we are going to get some insanely eye popping numbers for our defense budget…
I think the defense budget has been eye popping my entire life. There is no limiter on what we’ll spend on war. But fuck you if you’re poor and can’t eat.
And for that cheap cheap investment (paid with debt of course) you can double-tap a girls primary school and kill them and their teachers and reap lots of soft power reward.
All that energy and the outcome is 183 girls dead and loss of global goodwill.
The guy above mentioned Eisenhower warning of this and no one listed, but he wasn't the only one, 1984 had the same economics at play.
I 100% support more and better welfare programs for the poor and hungry, but the issue with those programs is not one of volume. We already spend more on those programs than everything else combined. The problem is how those funds are being allocated and utilized. Obviously the BBB and cutting trillions in benefits to give more tax cuts to corporations is absolutely vile, but the problem is a lot more complicated than just, "spend less on war and more on welfare".
Yeah, I was kinda surprised at how quick we were to blow though our supplies. Considering the DoD budget for decades, I was expecting our supply to be a nonissue in the short term.
Iran does have lots of drones. And they're very good for how expensive they are. For every drone that costs 20-50 thousand the US and Israel need an interceptor missile that costs millions. (In American dollars) You do the math. Especially since Iran is willing to go after oil production and transport.
Oh for sure. Over the decades of military buildup, I would have expected we had more to show for it despite all the mismanagement (and that's not even considering the current admin).
Iirc the US doesn't have a lot of domestic manufacturing. And the US should have massive stockpiles of ordinance in cause of a larger war. So they do have a lot of material, it's just hard to make and replace because everything is outsourced these days. And the US has spent the last year pissing off literally everyone.
I'm also of the opinion that the US is starting to run out of money to pump into the US. Beyond an unreasonable and economy collapsing amount. So much money is being siphoned into the stock market and speculation. The military is already running on incredible amounts of money. The US would have to go into massive debt (more massive debt anyway) to increase production and acquisition.
Dont get me started on the U.S. running out of money. We've been kicking the can down the road for the benefit of a few for decades. Moreso a question of when than if when the world stops buying our debt.
Probably in a decade or two. Depends on how fast this administration accelerates it and if a Democratic administration can properly fix it. It's really hard to tell how the economics will go in this environment.
Been hearing this my whole life. The game changed in 2008 and everyone pretends it didnt.
The government will forever print money to pay off its own debt, this money will flee into assets, and the rich will get richer and the poor loose more and more purchasing power until the country looks like Brazil, Russia, etc.
I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy.
I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy.
I think it is important to realize it's part of our reserves. Part of that is weapons have an expiration date so it doesn't make sense to stockpile too many. We also have been providing and selling them all over the middle east and Ukraine. Finally, we have been using them alot this last year. Minor to major strikes in Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iran (first time last June). We also have used several dozen precision missiles hitting alleged drug boats and launched an d and attack on Venzuela. We do normally strikes thousands of targets a year but we have been ramping back up for not being in an active fight (ie Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS) and also attacking people that have more things to launch back at us that requires thousands of interceptors.
This literally has nothing to do with the problem.
This is domestic issues caused by parties like the Republicans slashing taxes when we are running a deficit. It’s a society that supports and allows individuals to accumulate vast sums of money because they “earned it”.
Our defense budget has nothing to do with the actual problem of why we overspend. It’s a tiny fraction of our budget.
I’m not sure 1/7 is a tiny fraction. Also, “parties like the Republicans” is a weird way of saying “Republicans”. But otherwise, yes, the bigger issue is tax revenue.
We can afford the war (kind of), it’s all the downstream social service and infrastructure investment cuts that will be cut and really be evident in society.
The poor and brown will be blamed, the middle class will suffer and the rich will get richer. Same old song and dance, on and on…until there is a violent revolution of some sort. Problem is, it will probably be a manufactured civil war.
Because the war was not adequately planned for. We shouldn’t be using Patriots against Shaheds for one thing. For another point, we prepped for 6-12 months before Iraq, which we very obviously did not do here. This war, regardless of finances, is unsustainable on its own without a disastrous reorganizational period which would give Iran tons of time to prepare and exploit our foolhardy start.
> I’m genuinely at a loss at how we are going to afford this war
we have no other option - unless we keep blowing up schools for billions of dollars a piece, people are going to keep talking about the epstein files, which means the democrats will win the midterms, and america will not be great again because democracy will still exist.
We aren’t affording this war right now, let alone in the future. Our military is set up for shock and awe, not sustained battles and longterm missions. We are definitely not set up for any sort of mass occupation halfway around the world. Those missiles will run out and we will then have to resort to less optimal, meaning less accurate and precise options. This meaning instead of putting a missile through a building window to take out a target, we would then have to resort to dropping a bomb and flattening the entire building and killing everyone within a 50 yard radius.
You can see what it goes to on debtclock.org it most definitely is not going to the rich. The rich pay most of the taxes in this country by far. The 1% pay 40-45% of the taxes and the top 10% pay 70-75% of the taxes. This is an uninformed statement. Go on debtclock.org for an accurate representation of where our tax money goes
The top 1% often pay lower rates when capital gains, dividends, and other forms of wealth (rather than just wages from a job) are also included in that figure.
Debt clock will show you some figures, but does little to give context to the situation in America. Our taxes are high, on our labor. But when it comes to taxes for investors, then it's a different story.
And even then they still account for the figures I stated. The answer shouldn’t be tax a certain group more, it should be - learn to balance a budget and pay off debt given your current income I.e. taxes given. Why is it that the US gov gets to have things they can’t afford while we all have to cut costs to afford the basics? Seems to me the US needs to cut a vast majority of its unnecessary spending in order to pay off its debt
So for each of the 342,376,200 Americans in our current census, that means we each just got another $900 of debt added to our individual debit sheets. Last. Month. Alone.
I guarantee you Israel wouldn't be this bad if it weren't for the US arming and funding their military and Bibi's bloodlust. It's all to line the pockets of defense contractors and to keep trying to hold on to that hard power and keep our dying empire alive
The rich keep hoarding the wealth, the people pay for it.
When it's time to tax the rich, they pass it down to their kids with irrevocable trusts, donate that money to churches that never pay taxes and organizations that end up giving it back in favors.
it's sustainable for at least 942 people.
And when it's not, they'll get on an airplane or spaceship and look for a new country or planet to move to an "expat" because the term immigrant is an ugly term they don't want you to use because they're special.
Every man, woman and child in the usa owes 120k. So if you are a family of 4, you guys owe 480k. Just federal debt. You also owe your state and city debt too.
Fwiw, the only way out is inflation. Thats gonna be the price of a loaf of bread at some point.
And this is how it needs to be framed come election season, what could you, the struggling poor to middle class family from X state have done with an extra $900 in your pocket last month? better more nutritious foods for your child? better classroom supplies? paid another month of rent before being evicted?
its all so nebulous when discussing numbers as big as a trillion a month, it never seems to hit home and land at the dining room table.
No it doesn't. Government debt is non-government wealth. Where do you think all those debt assets and interest payments go? The debt is a giant stock of savings for the private sector. It's adding to people's financial wealth. It's just doing so in a very unequal way.
Treasury bonds are assets to the holder, but they’re liabilities to taxpayers. That’s like saying a household got richer because someone inside the house wrote an IOU. The “wealth” only exists because someone still owes the money.
> Treasury bonds are assets to the holder, but they’re liabilities to taxpayers. That’s like saying a household got richer because someone inside the house wrote an IOU.
No, it's explicitly not like this. The government's balance sheet is not your balance sheet. The government's liabilities aren't your liabilities. Their liabilities are our assets.
There is also no inherent connection between interest rates and tax rates. They're both policy decisions. Paying out more interest even gives the private sector more money to spend, which causes more tax revenue to be collected as the number of transactions increases. Tax revenue will go up without any additional tax burden being placed on people because economic activity goes up. The whole 'burden on future generations' line is a myth. The debt is our savings, how can additional savings be a burden on future generations?
>The “wealth” only exists because someone still owes the money.
Yeah, the government owes, and the government can't run out of money. Paying out bonds is also balance sheet neutral. Nobody is getting additional assets. It's just swapping a fixed rate financial asset that's a liability of the central bank for a variable rate financial asset that's a liability of the Treasury. They're all liabilities from a currency issuing government. It's why debt levels have no impact on interest rates.
Treasury bonds are assets to the holder because the government has promised to tax or inflate to pay them. If they truly weren’t a liability to the public, they wouldn’t need to be repaid with taxpayer-funded interest every year.
“Government debt is our savings” only applies to the people holding the bonds. The rest of the country is on the hook for the interest payments.
Taxpayers aren't on hook and the government doesn't even have to pay interest at all if it doesn't want to. The government spends money into existence. Both the money and the bonds are created out of thin air by the currency issuing public sector. There's nothing inherently inflationary about swapping between the two either. The Fed's repo and reverse repo facilities guarantee the ability to do that as needed. If the debt was inflationary then it already would be because there's nothing stopping people from spending all their bonds at the aggregate level.
The government doesn't spend with your taxes, you pay taxes with what the government spends. Money must be issued first, otherwise there's nothing in the financial system to subtract from. Currency issuing governments earn what they spend, unlike households that can only spend what they earn. This is why tax receipts surged after the pandemic stimulus spending.
>“Government debt is our savings” only applies to the people holding the bonds.
They're assets to the entire private sector in aggregate, but this does get at the distributional issue of who holds those assets within the private sector. The debt equals savings, so for all you people terrified of the debt, you're going to need tax policies that cause those savings to become taxed. Or better yet, stop inflating those savings with unnecessary interest payments.
Keynes would probably be enjoying the sh*t outta this thread.
But no. In practicality, and in terms of what a 21st century American public would tolerate - if a government can create unlimited money to pay interest and roll debt forever with no consequences, then there’d be no reason not to fund the entire government that way and eliminate taxes altogether. The reason no country actually does that is because the constraint shows up somewhere else, usually inflation or currency depreciation. Treasury bonds may be assets to the private sector, but they’re still claims on future government payments. Calling them “savings” doesn’t make the underlying obligation disappear.
Any other country would have had a currency crisis by now. But US gets to continue spending trillions it doesn’t have indefinitely…. Funding for wars and conquests. It has to stop.
And the wars aren't even in our interest. It would be one thing if we got land or riches for the wars in the last decades but they are all just for less than nothing.
I was just making a stupid point, of course that it what it should be, especially for a rich country like the USA that doesn't have any need for more land or money. But no, cynically war is and always will be about power, land, money etc. The latest US wars have not been in any interest of the US, not even safety is my point.
It’s not indefinite. This will be an ugly ending. If ordinary Americans don’t kick Israel out of our politics, starting YESTERDAY, we are going to be fiscally fucked.
You mean the party of fiscal responsibility is skyrocketing the debt yet again when they’re in power like every time they’ve gotten power for my entire lifetime?
The real question is; with all the debt rising like crazy and the fact that govt pays the interest on the debt with the new debt it is borrowing, how come financial markets are not reacting negatively? How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady? I will tell you why. The global financial system is rigged and manipulated by Epstein's friends. Prove me wrong.
For sure, but the third leg to that stool is that those components create a sort of MAD situation. Collapsing that system means mutually assured economic destruction. So everyone is sort of stuck hoping the bomb doesn't go off.
.......Until the bomb inevitably goes off from the US's aggressively stupid hijinks that like almost all Fascist movements, eventually have their Poland/Second Front in Russia moment.
One of those "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen" moments I suspect.
Not sure it happens under Trump, but the death cult of Reactionary Conservatism and Neocon stupidity in the US simply morphs and takes new shapes, it never dies.
There is the Euro, and the Europeans wouldn't even have to start it if all of a sudden the global South just started trading in the currency. They've been allies with the US all along but once the juices start to flow they'll most likely follow the flavour.
Most EU governments are supporting the US/Israeli line right now, but trust me, as someone who lives here, the vast, vast majority of the people here do not support this or their governments stance on this and it will be reflected in the ballot boxes sooner or later. They politicians have a very limited window and they know it.
This was the inevitable endgame of passive investing. TSLA continues to hover at ATHs even after massive global protests, its brand implosion, and declining sales. Yet it's up +80% YoY. Markets aren't real anymore.
>The real question is; with all the debt rising like crazy and the fact that govt pays the interest on the debt with the new debt it is borrowing, how come financial markets are not reacting negatively? How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady? I will tell you why. The global financial system is rigged and manipulated by Epstein's friends. Prove me wrong.
Part of it is that this is a nationstate not a household, if it becomes an actual problem in the ground we can raise taxes, which needs to happen anyway, and pay for it
We just keep raiding the store and kicking the can down the road and putting it on the debt books of americans that haven't even been born yet
We could tomorrow put in place public healthcare and rework the absolute bullshit system we have and save all of us 500B a year, minimum, because thats the profit share of our health insurance spending, and its easily going to be considerably higher than that just due to streamlining and redundancy savings-- across the board btw. My mother was a nurse and then went into medical billing, she did it for 40y, she worked for a midsize hospital in NJ and there were like 25 people in her office that just dealt with the absolute fucking rats nest of different insurance companies and how they bill what theie standards and individual syatems are, there are dozens of people in ever hospital that do nothing but call insurance companies to get answers on whats covered and what isnt, every single doctors office either has 1 or 2 or several people in it that do nothing but those 2 things or they waste their own time dealing with it....just getting rid of the middle man and people that deal with all that will save us a metric shitload of money every year, it will also give us EXTREME leverage over pharmaceutical and device companies to get better pricing, THEY also wont need to pay a shitload of people that are just running around doing drug deals with all these little offices and local and regional hospitals
Thats just one thing.
We could easily cut the military budget by 25-50% and still be by FAR the most well funded military on earth, multiples of the next few nations on earth
Im not saying these things are easy but its doable, especially push came to shove....we have a 31 Trillion dollar economy...our debt is fucking outrageous but its still manageable....for now at least
What's crazy is that what you just described is 100% talked about within the already released Epstein of files. Literally hundreds of emails of Epstein talking to other oligarchs and world leaders about destabilizing post WW2 peace starting in 2011. And, more importantly, tons of evidence proving the US stock market is manipulated and fraudulent since then as well. That's why Warren Buffet recently retired and why Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in the Big short) literally closed his own hedgefund at the end of last year and is now making a ton of public statements about how completely captured the US market is. Everything you just said is not only true, it's easily provable with what's already public in the Epstein files, and anyone of intelligence is acting accordingly. The fact this isn't being talked about daily is just more proof of how captured our media has become.
Cause even though our debt to gdp is 130%, most of the west is also above 100%. Japan is at 230% and still has functioning markets. China is currently ~~300%~~ around 96%.
The US is in a crazy deficit though, especially when you start aggregating the debt. Those numbers for federal govt debt are basically not important,what matters is the total debt(all govt levels of debt+promises/liabilities that aren't officially debt but are the same thing, household debt, and corporate debt).
The US fiscal govt whole is massive though. It's like 7.3% of GDP a year when all the actual liabilities. Italy is like 4% for comparison. So whole the US debt stock looks manageable, the rate of increase is wild.
You know what's really unsettling? The system is so complex, so interconnected, and so dependent on collective confidence that the people inside it are also trapped by it. Central bankers, treasury officials, and major institutions may be managing perceptions not out of malice or conspiracy, but because the alternative of letting markets fully price in the debt reality would likely trigger the very collapse everyone is trying to avoid.
In other words, acknowledging the truth out loud is more dangerous than pretending everything is fine.
It's not a conspiracy lol. It's just that the mainstream narrative around national debt for currency issuing governments is completely wrong. You'd think that maybe after more than a half century of the opposite correlation of what's expected might get people questioning things, but it's a narrative that just doesn't die.
Treasury yields aren't based on investor demands. Yields are anchored to the policy rate as central banks have monopoly pricing power. It creates an arbitrage situation where one side of the deal can always go to the Fed for better terms if they want. So the yield for any duration is based on the expected trajectory of the policy rate over that duration with a term premium thrown in for uncertainty.
Investors aren't actually trying to price in economic conditions or inflation or whatever else as direct causal variables. They're trying to price in what the central bank will do next. The relationship to the broader economy exists only because the Fed uses interest rates counter-cyclically.
Growing deficits don't cause higher interest rates. In fact once fiscal dominance is reached, which seems inevitable given the state of the US, the Fed will be forced to lower interest rates to prevent an inflationary spiral. The interest expense is fundamentally a policy choice, because the interest rate is a policy choice.
So long story short, bond yields have been falling instead of rising because of the expectation of interest rate cuts by the Fed over the next year or two. The size of the deficit doesn't matter.
Because they are effectively stealing money and making their buddies rich through government contracts. And they’ll just print more money and inflate away the debt and hurt the average American. The stock market is going up because if your money is in cash, you’re gonna lose it all to inflation. Buy gold!
Honestly I don’t think anyone can answer that question. Is it vibes? Is it being propped up?
What is clear is that reality and fundamentals left the conversation awhile ago. If they hadn’t then yes the market would be reacting to both the debt growth and war in Iran very differently. Likewise inflation and unemployment. Oh and companies like Tesla and Trump media would have been penny stocks. Yes here we are with some folks trying to defend irrational behavior with logic.
> How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady?
Maybe those who buy treasure bonds don't have much choice in the matter?
I.e. pension funds are legally obligated to invest into certain types of financial instruments and nowhere else.
Foreign governments have no choice due to non-financial instruments through which US projects power.
The current amount spent on interest payments is about 50% of the amount of revenue generated by the income tax. If the federal budget cut deficit spending immediately and stayed current on all its debt obligations, it would still have $4.1 trillion to spend. Obviously, the current trends are very suboptimal, but we don't have to get hysterical and start making stuff up.
Who knows? I've been following politics closely for three decades and have heard and read tons of warnings about the federal debt for my entire adult life. None of the predicted calamities have happened. Doesn't mean they won't, but I think at this point it's worth questioning the assumptions these predictions rest on because they are clearly wrong.
Since virtually all currencies are fiat currencies and since the dollar is the global reserve currency, I think it's fair to see that this allows the federal government to safely operate with a fairly large deficit in a way that wouldn't be possible if either of those conditions weren't met. I also think that a lot of analysts ignore how much debt is owned by the federal reserve bank, and the implications of that. There's a pretty strong case to be made from a monetary perspective that federal debt essentially functions as de facto money printing and is essentially taxation through inflation.
Again, I'd say the current situation is suboptimal, but it's clearly functional and shows no sign of impending failure, so it's very much a good idea to examine ones models and assumptions since they are very clearly being contradicted by reality.
The $ is the 'de facto' reserve currency + PetroDollar.
Downgrading Treasuries - to the level of France with only 118% Debt to GDP - would have a non-trivial impact on the world economy i guess.
Getting out of the $ as a reserve currency is a complete other mess, but we'll see how the ME thing will pan out.
Some US client states in the Gulf Region are absolutely not amused about US / Israel coup, and we'll have to wait for the fallout after the 'dust' has settled.
My bet is, they will re evaluate their partnership with US re: Petrodollar.
This country is so stupid, it's allowing a conman and failed businessman who bankrupted so many business run it like one of his companies as it watches.
The total budget shortfall to keep all US infrastructure up to date is about $370B a year. The US is choosing to spend money on war and tax cuts rather than infrastructure. $11B to kill some of the Iranian leadership. $2B to kidnap the leader of Venezuela. Trump tax cuts are expected to cost $7.7 trillion. The top 20% of Americans get 75% of that while roads and schools lack funding.
And the funny thing is that in a year, if Democrats really ever get in again, they are going to get blown up and pilloried for making the necessary changes to fix this problem! It’s going to hurt a lot!
The propaganda is going to be so huge. And we’ll get Republicans again and we will mess it all up again. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over. Voters are uninformed idiots with no sense for history.
Just looking from afar it seems the issue is the media ecosystem, if the dems get back in they should push to fix that. Its hard for voters to ge informed if they are deliberately misinformed.
I mean at the end of the day I’m all for taking personal responsibility and action when possible . It appears that the majority of people in the USA are not into this, so while I don’t agree with you in principal, I think in practice you are probably correct.
I absolutely agree with your theory as well.
At the same time I see repeated failure of people in my own small community to recognize and accept their personal accountability. I feel this has become endemically infectious, making the theory aspirational in current state.
I live in Ohio and this is I think exactly why our governor just received the bill to make ranked choice voting illegal. It’s the one thing that can stop this pendulum shift without complete system overhaul.
Official Government Response: "Guys, listen. It doesn't matter if the US goes into severe unrecoverable debt because Armageddon is coming. The end-times are here and God's chosen will ascend to heaven when Greater Isreal is formed and Jesus returns to rapture the souls of all men. And a few women - but no fatties allowed."
Conservative Trump supporters, "we keep voting the same way and things keep getting worse... so we doubled down and now its broken... i dont understand what went wrong. It must be the democrats fault some how..."
In 2024, the GOP, the entirety of the financial media, all of conservative media, and most of corporate media, went on at length about Ferguson's Law (great powers fall when interest on it's debt exceeds it's defense spending), but not a single peep about it now. It's also why Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget, because that number specifically puts the defense budget above debt spending. The GOP is creating budgets based on the talking points they want for upcoming elections.
He's going to use up all our missles, give Putin plenty of money for the oil we now need and then leave our country broke and defenseless, no allies left and hand us over to Vlad or the Crown prince of who the hell cares and live his life on Epstein Island.
This is exactly what they want. Thiel, Musk, Vance, and Trump are purposely trying to destroy the country. They want to turn it into a bunch of nation states run by billionaires.
Don't worry, all that tariff money will eliminate all of our debt concerns - or at least cover the interest. All they have to do is check the tariff shelf like what Trump said back in September: "Last week they found $29 billion and they couldn't figure out where it came from. I said, check the tariff shelf. And they said, 'How did you know that?'" Heck, back in June , Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote a Wall Street Journal piece claiming Trump-era tariffs “generated $37.8 billion in revenue for the U.S. in April and May.” Amazingly, no one really pressed them for details on any of this.
Hegseths DoD just admitted to spending an additional $93 billion on basically frivolous bullshit because they had it leftover in the budget and didn't want to return it.
I'd be willing to bet that a huge portion of that was just him literally sending money to friends and family who own companies they could use to send in invoices.
> Hegseths DoD just admitted to spending an additional $93 billion on basically frivolous bullshit because they had it leftover in the budget and didn't want to return it.
No they didn’t. The total cost of the military was $93B, the frivolous bullshit was like a fraction of a percent of that
We have never seen corruption at this scale and it was all enabled by this both sides BS.
We would not be seeing the mass pardons of corrupt white collar convictions if the other side won. We wouldnt be seeing the president rug pulling the stock market or meme coins. We wouldnt be watching commerce secretarys kids buying tariff refund rights for pennies on the dollar while he shills tariffs on TV. We wouldnt be seriously talking about invading canada or greenland.
Both sides are not perfect, true, but only one side is hell on earth, cult, soviet level mindless party over country, party over sanity, party over facts
Why are Hakeem and Chuck indicating they will vote to approve another $50B for Israel's war? Why is Jared Polis indicating he's about to pardon Tina Peters, the sole GOP official to go to prison for Trump's election fraud? How can our party leaders argue our democracy is under attack while facilitating the attackers and pardoning them? The only answer is they are complicit.
edit: this is the environment that Citizens United created, probably the worst decision in the history of our courts. Allowing unlimited dark money poisoned the well of our politics and created a fundraising arms race where House seats now cost $20M and Senate seats $300M to run a campaign. Keith Olbermann predicted much of what is currently unfolding when that decision first came down.
You appear to be talking about the House, so I assume you’re talking about the SAVE Act. Literally ONE Dem voted for it. Every single other voted against. Terrible example of what you’re lying about.
Like FROM WHOOO. Who the fuck is lending us money anymore and why..... I get it, world economy and whatever. But its so stupid that we are spending all our tax dollars and the world's money on the rich, war, and corporate America.
nihilism, money isn't real, numbers aren't real, laws aren't real, all are subjective and can change and dissolve at any time.
What's a few 100 trillion more debt when humans only live about 80 years and the Median lifetime earnings for U.S. workers is approximately 1.7 million over a 40-year career?
So the guy who bankrupted Atlantic city amd went BK himself 4-6 times is bankrupting a country now? Who could've thought someone who was so bad with money could keep repeating the same pattern? I mean people who voted for this must have been thinking "this time he learned his lesson after going bankrupt so many times"? I guess what was the thought here seriously?
Where'd all those "fiscal conservative" Republicans disappear to?
Wait, I know. They're all lined up smooching Trumps ass because they're afraid of him and their own political base.
I suppose it's as we thought for the last 40 years. They don't give a crap about balanced budgets and just regurgitate whatever nonsense they think wins the next election.
I'm not sure how you could make it any clearer that the modern GOP is no longer conservative and does not give two hoots about the country, the future, or their constituents. They're only interested in campaigning on the emotional issues that really don't make two cents worth of difference to the economy or direction the nation is headed.
>Where'd all those "fiscal conservative" Republicans disappear to?
They never actually existed. It was just rhetoric to get votes. The fiscal conservatives never once made an effort at fiscal restraint except to try and gut social programs and benefits.
Dick Cheney once said that deficits don’t matter. Maybe he was right.
In short: Cheney was half-right in a cynical, short-term political sense (deficits often don't kill you at the ballot box, and the U.S. has a lot of runway as the issuer of the global reserve currency). But he was oversimplifying the economics—deficits matter a great deal when they're structural, interest costs explode, or they fuel inflation. We're testing how far that runway really extends right now.
Legitimately there are times where it may not matter, or rather may matter less than the alternative, right? (Like in a true war, not fabricated war, scenario).
Also, wrt to complexities, GDP/Debt ratio matters, right?
Canada taking a risk on raising their deficit with the lowest GDP to debt ratio of all G7 is very different than our situation.
I genuinely don’t remember was fairly young, when Cheney said that was our US GDP to debt ratio as astronomical as it is today?
Here is the worst part about this. Their are people who chose trump because they though oh we need a business man to run the country. Well this is what they do smh. They will leverage debt in the hopes of being profitable. We have seen it in the recent AI boom and how companies are spending crazy amounts of money in a future they are betting on comes true. Some times the bet pays off and other times it fails horribly. And right now this could be one of those where it fails horribly. And the worst part this won't be just a company that fails but an entire country and economy. Smh
Probably shouldn't have picked a fake businessman who bankrupted almost every business he ran, including fcking CASINOS! The only time the house didn't win
Interest costs are now structurally higher than they were and there's no way back. The way to address the problem is to cut spending, which is politically impossible. Another way is to reduce debt via real (vs reported) inflation, slowly making the dollar a worthless paper. Cuts are much better but...
Listen here, you mother fucker. You leave those billionaires alone. If you lay a finger on their balance sheet I'm going to vote for a pedophile murderer to be president.
I think they omitted that because we have allowed the problem to progress beyond the point where repatriating taxes on the top 10% is going to fix the deficit. We have allowed the debt to grow to the point where the interest payments are too massive to maintain the deficit structure even after (let’s be honest) marginal adjustments the taxation at the highest income levels.
It’s just like climate change. The wealthy ate gaming the system all the way through and beyond the point of no return.
Necessary, but no longer a solution by itself. Theoretically cutting entitlements COULD make the difference by itself, but that would also brutally crush consumer spending.
I think it’s important to highlight that we have passed the point of no return a the original comment did that though omission. Increasing taxes on the wealthy isn’t about stopping the problem, it’s about punishing them for creating it.
I’m fully onboard with it. Fuck the entire Epstein class. Anyone that contributed financially and politically to this should be stripped of assets and left to rot in the deepest hole we can find. It still won’t fix the deficit.
Fully agree, although there was a history of poor deficit management since the Great Depression. This issue isn’t how we got here, it what we do now. The options we had to reasonably change things while retaining quality of life are gone. Conservatives smothered it.
Going after the rich won’t fix the problem anymore, and that’s by design. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go after the rich, but at this point it would be for punitive purposes rather than economically sound ones. We are no longer having a conversation about fixing the problem, just who to punish for the failure.
Taxing the rich and cleaning up the defense budget would go a long way to put us back on track for a balanced budget. Would still need more cuts though.
I didn’t say it’s not worth attempting. I said the reasons for doing it are not purely economic. It’s about making the people who put us in the position foot the bill, but we (the American people) will be paying the vast majority of it regardless.
We can no longer say just increasing taxes will fix the problem. More importantly, we need to recognize the sociopathic behavior of the elite that got us here and restrict their access to wealth and power so that it never happens again. Not because it will balance the budget, but because they should have to suffer consequences.
Same with the not-so-subtle assertion about cutting spending which assumes that current spending, most of which is neoliberal corporate subsidies, couldn't be made more efficient and arguably more universal by simply cutting out the cancer of neoliberal privatization where applicable and reducing corporate subsidies.
Hey man we can’t raise taxes on all the job creators. Better to just not tax them at all and anyone making $200k or less annually have a huge tax increase.
Just think about that sentence. First off the math is wrong. If musks money was liquid he could pay that for SIXTEEN weeks by himself.
Second why do we let ANY one person have that much wealth in the first place? It’s fucking obscene in a nation that won’t adequately feed and clothe its poor, and can’t seem to understand what a healthcare system is.
Or reversing all the revenue cuts that gave more and more breaks to the obscenely wealthy and huge corporations. And clawing back the outrageous budget increases to ICE and the military. And impeaching and removing the guy who has a history of spending recklessly and insanely and then just declaring bankruptcy over and over again.
It isn't but ultimately the marker decides when it's sustainable. Once interest rates start consistently climbing instead of trading sideways despite fee changing interest rates then I would expect the amount of debt being issues actually being a problem for the market.
Reminder : the average life expectancy of male human is 78 years. Tic...toc...tic...toc... Can't wait for this amazing news. Champagne is ready. The world will be thankful that human lives actually end...
What institutions did the US borrow the money from? I can’t think of any that have that sort of money to lend. China is not buying US bonds anymore, they are sellers nowadays.
I know a lot of people think the goldbugs are nut jobs, but let’s be honest the fast rise in gold prices over the last two years is telling us something. Seems to be no concern with our spending in Washington.
Oh yes, don’t we love the party of fiscal responsibility. I love their range. They can add a trillion dollars worth of debt over the first five months of the fiscal year, yet when the plebs ask for better tax credits or better health care regulation, all of a sudden, 100 billion dollars is impossible to find and would break the country..
We have reached bipartisan consensus that money isn’t real. eg Trump complained that Biden didn’t spend enough on COVID programs.
I think this is insane.
From July 2019. Pre COVID
The New York Democrat argued that ambitious programs can easily be financed through deficit spending.
"I think the first thing that we need to do is kind of break the mistaken idea that taxes pay for 100% of government expenditure," Ocasio-Cortez told NPR's Morning Edition in February.
In doing so, she shined a spotlight on a once-obscure brand of economics known as "modern monetary theory," or MMT.
After-Weakness-9922 | a day ago
Hegseth blew 90 billion in a month on "fruit basket stands" and steaks that somehow work out to $500 each, even when you buy $200000 worth. Like come on. Nothing makes sense. This is one month.
Euphoric-Witness-824 | 23 hours ago
Extreme fraud and abuse. The wealthy are raiding public dollars before they collapse it again. It makes perfect sense. Don’t worry though. They won’t face any repercussions. It’s not like they are poor and black or trans.
After-Weakness-9922 | 23 hours ago
It's just such a slap in the face lie too. I wonder where it really went. I think some people are starting to get that condition Germans did during inflation, where they lost concept of how large a number is because of all the 0's they had to keep adding. Thanks bathroom reader for that. Lol
Euphoric-Witness-824 | 23 hours ago
Invested in apocalypse shelters. Crypto accounts. Offshore bank accounts. Foreign companies. Stashed with loyalist followers. Trump has been involved with the Russian mob/government for years and he’s following putins gameplan to try this dictator thing out so I’m sure they’ve given him tips on how to hide his stolen funds. After all he’s earned it. He’s destroyed America for them.
glwillia | a day ago
i really think the MO for private equity, ie buy a company, load it up with debt to fund the purchase, extract everything of value, and then declare bankruptcy for the purchased company, is exactly what’s being done to the usa. it’s what was done with russia in the 1990s too.
bobsonjunk | a day ago
Did you happen to read “Red Notice” by Bill Browder? You are spot on with the plan.
ChiLolla28 | 22 hours ago
The scene from Goodfellas where the mobsters do this to a restaurant is an MBA lesson in and of itself / perfect example of private equity.
mortgagepants | 22 hours ago
"bust-out" economics. lovely.
MmmmMorphine | 22 hours ago
I have not myself - could you expand a bit on that? Is it more of a emergent sort of behavior or are there (supposed, active) malicious actors? Or both, guess they're not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Woberwob | 23 hours ago
If you look at Trump’s track record, that’s what he’s done in the past. Buy businesses with loads of high risk debt, default, and leave vendors and business partners on the hook with unpaid bills while he lawyers/daddy’s moneys his way out of accountability for the ship he sunk.
Working people get hurt, cronies win.
weech | a day ago
Well that worked out well for Russia right? …right?
Flashy_Jello_9520 | a day ago
Worked out for the oligarchs.
ScoffersGonnaScoff | a day ago
Except the ones who were near balconies
StrategicPotato | 23 hours ago
Which also worked exactly as designed.
These guys work like mobile piggy banks for papa Putin. Russia needs more money? Throw one of these guys out a window and conveniently confiscate all of his assets.
realMaciasNguema | 22 hours ago
russian civilians didn't have half a billion guns
TheGMT | 22 hours ago
If you haven't used them yet, you're probably not going to use them
realMaciasNguema | 22 hours ago
america has possibly the highest standard of living in the world and americans are already extremely violent. if things get 1990s russia level bad the people responsible are going to have a very very bad time
leperphilliac | 22 hours ago
The large majority of people who talk a big game about needing guns to rebel against the government shit themselves bc they're scared of trans people and love licking the boots of tyrannical governments. The people who'd be responsible for a Russia like collapse would find an army of easily led morons in those people.
realMaciasNguema | 22 hours ago
the people obsessed with overthrowing the government are LARPers who get to endlessly talk shit because they know they will never have to put their money where their mouth is as long as america remains prosperous and stable. if the US experiences economic and state collapse on par with russia in the 1990s it won't be the fat diabetic boomers with lifted trucks and 30 guns causing trouble
ReachParticular5409 | 23 hours ago
Can we fucking please stop responding to every fuckdamn erosion of our nation with sarcasm?
It accomplishes nothing but gives the illusion of action.
But no, you want your imaginary internet points so fuck any form of social cohesion to do what is right
New-Inside4079 | 22 hours ago
It pisses me off so badly. Everyone in my life, who I think are well intentioned people, seem to find something really fuckin funny about the Epstein files and the Iran war. There is nothing funny about it. Our president was party to decades of horrific sexual abuse and is starting a war killing thousands of civilians to distract from it. There is NOTHING funny about that.
ReachParticular5409 | 22 hours ago
fully fucking agreed, there is a cabal of incredibly wealthy and powerful child rapists running the world and 90% of people do nothing but post memes.
Competitive_Berry897 | 23 hours ago
Thank you thank you thank you thank you! So sick of having to scroll through a thousand 'tired of winning yet?" bullshit posts and the like. We've all heard them a thousand times and it contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation.
SmokeontheHorizon | 23 hours ago
And non-Americans are tired of hearing "Hey that's illegal!" and "We'll fix things at midterms!"
Fucking do something.
ReachParticular5409 | 22 hours ago
Same here and I have been to fourteen protests since Jan last year and IT DOES NOTHING
I can't see any answer out of this other than the ones reddit will ban me for
ReachParticular5409 | 22 hours ago
I'm so glad you get it, and I remember a time when reddit wouldn't have responded the way it has in the last ten years but we are LONG past those days
CreamofTazz | a day ago
Man maybe this whole capitalism and free markets thing just ain't all that great...
the_calibre_cat | 22 hours ago
I don't mind the free markets. I think we need a variety of shops and merchants. I just think they should be owned by their employees. Capitalism is just rent-seeking all the way down, and then the richest shitheads just finance conspiracy theorist bullshitters and fascists.
Spare-Rise-9908 | a day ago
Is govt borrowing trillions and spending beyond their means now a criticism if free market capitalism? I guess if you only know one line you've got to throw it out there.
CreamofTazz | a day ago
The comment I'm replying to is literally about private equity and how that strategy is seemingly being applied to the US government to eventually buy it up pennies on the dollar once it all blows up
How about we use our reading skills instead of just making asinine comments, yeah?
Norseman901 | a day ago
Im sorry are you expecting redditors to be both literate and capable of framing things in context?
Are you new here?
the_calibre_cat | 22 hours ago
The alternative is literally millions upon millions of people on the streets and dying. Leave it to a fucking conservative to be like, "no, it's the middlemen we should protect."
Logical-Boss8158 | a day ago
Your metaphor is dumb because that’s not how PE works. The company needs to have value at the “end” so that the PE firm can sell it.
sportsbunny33 | 23 hours ago
They don't sell it, they close it (see: Toys R Us, Joanne's Fabrics, etc etc)
Logical-Boss8158 | 23 hours ago
No they don’t. The vast majority of PE “exits” are sold to other PE firms or other public / private companies. You’re talking about extreme outlier cases - very very few PE firms want to see bankruptcy or closure. The vast majority make money by growing their businesses and selling them.
Source: me. I’m in the industry.
NegativeYou3758 | 23 hours ago
Profitability isn't necessarily tied to growing a business anymore. That ship has sailed. You can create additional valuation without creating foundational growth.
You may be in the industry, but you clearly aren't paying attention.
Logical-Boss8158 | 23 hours ago
Actually no, you’re wrong. The era of financially engineering value is over, and there is more of a premium than ever on growing the business. This has been common sentiment for 2+ years.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
MaleficentPorphyrin | 22 hours ago
>done with russia in the 1990s too.
The Heritage Foundation played a role in that too. So, I suppose it would be expected.
brickedTin | a day ago
Bankruptcy could enable restructuring or eliminating those pesky entitlement programs and leave an annual budget surplus so maybe you’re on to something.
[OP] InsaneSnow45 | a day ago
>The U.S. Treasury’s borrowing showed no signs of slowing as the U.S. headed deeper into fiscal year 2026, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reporting that another $1 trillion was added to the federal deficit in the first five months of the year.
>The monthly budget review from the CBO, updated to February 2026 and released yesterday, showed that the government is estimated to have borrowed $308 billion last month alone.
>Of course, with more borrowing comes higher interest costs on the debt. Between October 2025 (when the 2026 fiscal year started) and February, the Treasury spent an additional $31 billion on net interest on public debt, compared to the prior year. As a result, in just five months, the Treasury forked out a total of $433 billion to service public debt, which is now nearing $38.9 trillion.
>The CBO said that outlays for interest increased “because the debt was larger than it was in the first five months of fiscal year 2025 and because of higher long-term interest rates.” It added: “Declines in short-term interest rates partially mitigated the overall rise in interest payments.”
>Despite the eye-watering sums, the deficit was actually an improvement on last year’s borrowing. For the same period (October 2024 to February 2025), the government needed to borrow an additional $142 billion compared to this year’s figure.
lostroadrunner22 | a day ago
We are going to have one hell of a hangover, arent we?
OK_x86 | a day ago
And little to show for it as well
HarryBalsagna1776 | a day ago
Well wait, we will have created the first Trillionaire.
Pichupwnage | a day ago
Take literally all of it and put it towards the debt.
bradeena | 23 hours ago
First you'd have to find a buyer for Tesla at $1.25T lol
Wrong_Character_Sry | 23 hours ago
No purchase required.
mongojob | 22 hours ago
It's not liquid, to get cash you have to sell the stock
bradeena | 22 hours ago
You'll pay Japan back in Tesla stock directly?
SirGoodness | 23 hours ago
300 million of them hahhaha
sx3dreamzzz | a day ago
U mean Ironman?
HarryBalsagna1776 | a day ago
Lol no. We got Justin Hammer/Skeletor instead.
LiteratureMindless71 | a day ago
Spot on. Stealing others work and claiming it.
OctopusWithFingers | 23 hours ago
Don't forget the part where he makes it worse!
eawilweawil | 22 hours ago
Nah Justin Hammer is actually a genius himself, just not as smart as Tony Stark. Elon is the guy who yells 'HE BUILD IT IN A CAVE WITHA BOX OF SCRAPS!!!' in Iron Man 1
labalag | 23 hours ago
I heard Zimbabwe had tons of Trillionaires.
SirNastyPants | 22 hours ago
[ Removed by Reddit ]
Cdub7791 | 22 hours ago
The first trillionaire was probably in Weimer Germany or Zimbabwe.
CatOfGrey | 22 hours ago
Doesn't matter - it's only on paper anyways.
Company stock isn't 'real', most of the value is future anticipated earnings.
Worthyness | 23 hours ago
Don't worry. Americans will vote the republicans right back into office when the democrats can't fix all the damage the current admin has done.
Lemp_Triscuit11 | a day ago
I hope there's a Thunderdome
Odd_Hair3829 | a day ago
this should be a meme line that just gets tacked onto every single goddamn it's all falling apart story - "I hope at least we get a Thunderdome." I hear they're gonna build us a Thunderdome! something...
Lemp_Triscuit11 | a day ago
:( I thought I was being witty, I promise I'm not hip enough to have stolen it haha
StoneyBalogna7 | 22 hours ago
Does an MMA ring on the White House lawn count?
unitedshoes | a day ago
That's what's actually going in at the East Wing.
K2TY | a day ago
Except this brand new tattoo.
thumb0 | 23 hours ago
No ragrets?
K2TY | 22 hours ago
I know it's my own damned fault.
mehum | a day ago
Is that what you call the scars from stabbing yourself in the face with a piece of broken glass?
K2TY | a day ago
Its a real beauty.
SoylentGrunt | 23 hours ago
A deported cutie
unitedshoes | a day ago
Is it a Christian Nationalist or an outright Nazi tattoo?
K2TY | a day ago
Its a Mexican cutie.
paranoyed | a day ago
How it got there I haven’t a clue
Ranccor | a day ago
Actually negative things to show for it.
-Porktsunami- | 23 hours ago
Welcome to the government sponsored Fintech future! Privatized gain, while providing zero/negative societal value.
Makes line go up though so it must be good. /s
JK they are looting the treasury and sticking us with the bill.
CzarTwilight | 23 hours ago
As usual there's a George Carlin bit that describes this quite well. "When I get finished masturbating I'm going to have a little something to show for it"
kittenTakeover | a day ago
I'm guessing voters will react by punishing Democrats and electing more Republicans
DizzyMajor5 | a day ago
And cutting taxes for the wealthy
VerboseWarrior | a day ago
It's about to finally start trickling down, can't stop now.
Timmy-from-ABQ | 23 hours ago
The trickle down part in any period of difficulty in the economy is misery for the lower 50th percentile of the folks. People at the top don't experience the misery at all. They actually gain from it.
BadmiralHarryKim | 23 hours ago
rEpUbLiCaNs ArE bEtTeR fOr ThE eCoNoMy!!!!
T-sigma | a day ago
No no no, you don’t understand. I didn’t drink too much and over indulge, it must have been a minority that roofied me which caused all of this so we should be mad at them!
QFGTrialByFire | a day ago
Already started its difficult for Americans to see as its in their currency. Currencies are up against the USD for the past 1 year. That is your purchasing power decreasing in US and our interest in buying US stocks/bonds etc dying.
AUD / USD 13.70%
CAD / USD 6.30%
CHF / USD 13.14%
GBP / USD 4.41%
EUR / USD 7.28%
People keep talking about DXY but its weighted overly towards Euro/GBP/Yen and wont show the issues with the USD as they are debt laden as well. Look at a country with a modern economy and lower Debt to GDP like Aus for a truer picture.
Neither-Signature-81 | 22 hours ago
The dollar was at record highs though, it was always going to be rained in a bit
devliegende | a day ago
CPI 2.4%
QFGTrialByFire | 23 hours ago
So far.. we'll see what tomorrows numbers hold.
JC_Hysteria | a day ago
Mmm not a hangover…more like a fatty liver, where we’re hoping the future offers a miracle pill that cures decades of partying and neglect.
Many people believe military superiority is more sustainable than attempting to balance the budget…I guess we’ll see what happens at the end of the cycle!
^(I hope history isn’t the greatest teacher)
BigOs4All | 23 hours ago
Russia has shown that it's viable for decades even after the heart stops beating.
America has so much they can squeeze out of its citizens even now. If Republicans stay in power the lower 90% of Americans should start getting ready for austerity being permanent for them and the grift being permanent for the Epstein class.
Panthollow | 23 hours ago
Sure, but cleaning up the mess will once again fall on the Democrats. Once they do voters will punish them for being adults not letting the children eat non-stop candy.
The cycle will repeat until education in this country is vastly improved.
korben2600 | 22 hours ago
The great irony is we didn't even really get the candy [read: discretionary spending]. With 63% of it going towards military/homeland security but just 4% on education.
The Epstein class ate the majority of all the candy and now the children are going to find out what the phrase "forced austerity" even means.
vulgrin | a day ago
Yeah but not a fun one where the tiger is in the bathroom. In our version the tiger has eaten our entrails.
iamthinksnow | 23 hours ago
...And the leopard ate our face.
Ill-Bullfrog-5360 | a day ago
Inflate it away
UMACTUALLYITS23 | a day ago
Time to pull a Russia maybe, hey we formed a new country with all the old countries stuff, debt ain't ours shrug
discosoc | 23 hours ago
Not until 2028 when democrats get blamed for it and suddenly republicans start caring about the debt again.
No-Soup3344 | 23 hours ago
yeah, and dems will spend 4 years doing their best to fix this god damn mess, and somehow, it will all be bidens fault and they will just elect donald trump again from his grave
NoShitsGivin | 22 hours ago
For every day, the average American citizen does not reign in their government, they are assuring their children and children's children will be paying for the mistake that is Donald Trump.
He doesn't even have to rape them to ruin their lives.
lostroadrunner22 | 22 hours ago
How do you propose to reign in the government?
NoShitsGivin | 22 hours ago
Hound your local politicians. Boycott the businesses that support the regime. Genral strike. Protest. You know, all the stuff that the average American is not doing.
But I believe the general population isn't all that upset with Trump. But what do I know...
Hatta00 | 22 hours ago
That's the plan.
When we kick the bums out and get responsible people back in office, they're going to have to raise taxes and cut services to get this under control.
Guess how the voters are going to respond to that?
duckpato123 | 22 hours ago
I wouldn’t worry too much about that. When America is drinking it’s solidly Republican but it’s Democrat when it wakes up in the morning. That’s a problem for future America 😇
loco500 | 22 hours ago
That's a problem for the grandkids to figure out...oh wait, there's hardly going to be any at this rate.
Global_Rate3281 | a day ago
I mean only if people stop investing in US debt, every time we need to borrow money everyone with money to lend sprints to the window to throw their money at us
Aggravating_You3627 | 23 hours ago
The issue is you have to pay interest and that will become unmanageable at the current trajectory.
shmiss69 | 22 hours ago
I was wondering the same thing. Is there a realistic or possible scenario where this could burst? Like what would happen if multiple countries demand their debts paid back at the same time?
Global_Rate3281 | 22 hours ago
Just borrow more lol
visualcharm | a day ago
The only answer to even attempting to remedy this is to actually hold every billionaire criminal accountable by reaping their assets to rebuild.
mistressbitcoin | 23 hours ago
Not if the same people who upvote THIS post keep selling their stocks and buying US treasuries without realizing how hypocritical they are.
lostroadrunner22 | 23 hours ago
Time to buy treasuries?
Broad_Assistance3343 | a day ago
I’m genuinely at a loss at how we are going to afford this war. We are burning through an average of 160 patriots and 12-13 THAADS a day in Iran. Granted, that pace has slowed but it takes 18 months to build new ones.
Most of this stock was built before COVID. You know, before gas, tariffs, inflation etc. kicked in. All o f this stuff is going to be insanely expensive to continue manufacturing and restocking.
If we keep this up for 6 months we are going to get some insanely eye popping numbers for our defense budget…
vulgrin | a day ago
I think the defense budget has been eye popping my entire life. There is no limiter on what we’ll spend on war. But fuck you if you’re poor and can’t eat.
-XanderCrews- | a day ago
We build bombs we don’t use which is a waste of money. So we use the bombs. This is exactly what Eisenhower warned about.
User-NetOfInter | a day ago
Bombs are cheap. We have millions of pounds of bombs.
Missiles are the expensive ones.
We only build 70 tomahawks a year and they’re 2 mil a pop just to build, let alone transport and use.
Square_Marzipan2002 | 23 hours ago
And for that cheap cheap investment (paid with debt of course) you can double-tap a girls primary school and kill them and their teachers and reap lots of soft power reward.
All that energy and the outcome is 183 girls dead and loss of global goodwill.
The guy above mentioned Eisenhower warning of this and no one listed, but he wasn't the only one, 1984 had the same economics at play.
res0jyyt1 | 22 hours ago
But those bombs were already paid for though
theevilyouknow | 22 hours ago
I 100% support more and better welfare programs for the poor and hungry, but the issue with those programs is not one of volume. We already spend more on those programs than everything else combined. The problem is how those funds are being allocated and utilized. Obviously the BBB and cutting trillions in benefits to give more tax cuts to corporations is absolutely vile, but the problem is a lot more complicated than just, "spend less on war and more on welfare".
Financial-Barnacle79 | a day ago
Yeah, I was kinda surprised at how quick we were to blow though our supplies. Considering the DoD budget for decades, I was expecting our supply to be a nonissue in the short term.
DrB00 | a day ago
Every single time they audit the Pentagon there is millions unaccounted for.
Financial-Barnacle79 | a day ago
Yup. When DOGE was looking for all the alleged FWA, I was pretty sure they wouldn't touch this.
DrB00 | a day ago
Of course not. The whole point was to destroy departments investigating Elon and to steal as much personal information as possible.
maverick-nightsabre | 23 hours ago
millions is pocket change to them. Try trillions
Big-House-9931 | a day ago
Iran does have lots of drones. And they're very good for how expensive they are. For every drone that costs 20-50 thousand the US and Israel need an interceptor missile that costs millions. (In American dollars) You do the math. Especially since Iran is willing to go after oil production and transport.
Financial-Barnacle79 | a day ago
Oh for sure. Over the decades of military buildup, I would have expected we had more to show for it despite all the mismanagement (and that's not even considering the current admin).
Big-House-9931 | a day ago
Iirc the US doesn't have a lot of domestic manufacturing. And the US should have massive stockpiles of ordinance in cause of a larger war. So they do have a lot of material, it's just hard to make and replace because everything is outsourced these days. And the US has spent the last year pissing off literally everyone.
I'm also of the opinion that the US is starting to run out of money to pump into the US. Beyond an unreasonable and economy collapsing amount. So much money is being siphoned into the stock market and speculation. The military is already running on incredible amounts of money. The US would have to go into massive debt (more massive debt anyway) to increase production and acquisition.
Financial-Barnacle79 | a day ago
Dont get me started on the U.S. running out of money. We've been kicking the can down the road for the benefit of a few for decades. Moreso a question of when than if when the world stops buying our debt.
Big-House-9931 | 23 hours ago
Probably in a decade or two. Depends on how fast this administration accelerates it and if a Democratic administration can properly fix it. It's really hard to tell how the economics will go in this environment.
Square_Marzipan2002 | 23 hours ago
Been hearing this my whole life. The game changed in 2008 and everyone pretends it didnt.
The government will forever print money to pay off its own debt, this money will flee into assets, and the rich will get richer and the poor loose more and more purchasing power until the country looks like Brazil, Russia, etc.
Big-House-9931 | 23 hours ago
I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy.
Big-House-9931 | 23 hours ago
I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy.
bigkinggorilla | 23 hours ago
Military spending hasn’t always been connected with military need. Sometimes stuff gets built even though military command doesn’t want it.
So there’s probably a fair bit of hardware that cost a lot but can’t be used right now for whatever reason.
theevilyouknow | 22 hours ago
We're not shooting down drones with missiles that cost millions of dollars each.
edgarapplepoe | 23 hours ago
I think it is important to realize it's part of our reserves. Part of that is weapons have an expiration date so it doesn't make sense to stockpile too many. We also have been providing and selling them all over the middle east and Ukraine. Finally, we have been using them alot this last year. Minor to major strikes in Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iran (first time last June). We also have used several dozen precision missiles hitting alleged drug boats and launched an d and attack on Venzuela. We do normally strikes thousands of targets a year but we have been ramping back up for not being in an active fight (ie Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS) and also attacking people that have more things to launch back at us that requires thousands of interceptors.
EU4-8131 | 22 hours ago
Apparently they prefer spending the money on r&d projects, supply and maintenance of somewhat neglected.
Petrichordates | a day ago
Under this admin? Why? They obviously dont have any concept of a future.
Fritz1705 | a day ago
This literally has nothing to do with the problem.
This is domestic issues caused by parties like the Republicans slashing taxes when we are running a deficit. It’s a society that supports and allows individuals to accumulate vast sums of money because they “earned it”.
Our defense budget has nothing to do with the actual problem of why we overspend. It’s a tiny fraction of our budget.
Specialist-Phase-819 | a day ago
I’m not sure 1/7 is a tiny fraction. Also, “parties like the Republicans” is a weird way of saying “Republicans”. But otherwise, yes, the bigger issue is tax revenue.
DrB00 | a day ago
Except for the fact that every audit the Pentagon has millions to billions unaccounted for.
brendan87na | 23 hours ago
bold of you to assume this current administration cares at all about "how to afford it"
StoneyBalogna7 | 22 hours ago
We can afford the war (kind of), it’s all the downstream social service and infrastructure investment cuts that will be cut and really be evident in society.
The poor and brown will be blamed, the middle class will suffer and the rich will get richer. Same old song and dance, on and on…until there is a violent revolution of some sort. Problem is, it will probably be a manufactured civil war.
moonman272 | a day ago
The goal is to neuter our military. Iran gets sacrificed. Russia and china goes nuts when we’re spent
spearedintheface | a day ago
Don't forget that China is now exerting export controls over materials and minerals needed to build more interceptors.
BannedfromFrontPage | a day ago
Because the war was not adequately planned for. We shouldn’t be using Patriots against Shaheds for one thing. For another point, we prepped for 6-12 months before Iraq, which we very obviously did not do here. This war, regardless of finances, is unsustainable on its own without a disastrous reorganizational period which would give Iran tons of time to prepare and exploit our foolhardy start.
dust4ngel | 22 hours ago
> I’m genuinely at a loss at how we are going to afford this war
we have no other option - unless we keep blowing up schools for billions of dollars a piece, people are going to keep talking about the epstein files, which means the democrats will win the midterms, and america will not be great again because democracy will still exist.
Fullertonjr | a day ago
We aren’t affording this war right now, let alone in the future. Our military is set up for shock and awe, not sustained battles and longterm missions. We are definitely not set up for any sort of mass occupation halfway around the world. Those missiles will run out and we will then have to resort to less optimal, meaning less accurate and precise options. This meaning instead of putting a missile through a building window to take out a target, we would then have to resort to dropping a bomb and flattening the entire building and killing everyone within a 50 yard radius.
Cheaper.
dust4ngel | 22 hours ago
doesn't "borrow" imply some intent to repay? asking for my dictionary.
saintyoo | 22 hours ago
The US will pay its debts. The problem is that they do this by printing more money.
Worshipme988 | 22 hours ago
THEY DONT CARE. Trump47 was given the keys to the castle and the govt is a blank check they never have to repay.
Were gonna have to claw this money back and siphon bank accounts. Where ever they may be.
TheTeflonDude | a day ago
Where’s the money going?
nycdiveshack | a day ago
The rich, tax breaks
alvalladares25 | a day ago
You can see what it goes to on debtclock.org it most definitely is not going to the rich. The rich pay most of the taxes in this country by far. The 1% pay 40-45% of the taxes and the top 10% pay 70-75% of the taxes. This is an uninformed statement. Go on debtclock.org for an accurate representation of where our tax money goes
Edit- usdebtclock.org
TheRealBananaWolf | 23 hours ago
While that is true...
The top 1% often pay lower rates when capital gains, dividends, and other forms of wealth (rather than just wages from a job) are also included in that figure.
Debt clock will show you some figures, but does little to give context to the situation in America. Our taxes are high, on our labor. But when it comes to taxes for investors, then it's a different story.
alvalladares25 | 23 hours ago
And even then they still account for the figures I stated. The answer shouldn’t be tax a certain group more, it should be - learn to balance a budget and pay off debt given your current income I.e. taxes given. Why is it that the US gov gets to have things they can’t afford while we all have to cut costs to afford the basics? Seems to me the US needs to cut a vast majority of its unnecessary spending in order to pay off its debt
Madroxx9000 | 23 hours ago
its usdebtclock.org
SUMBWEDY | 23 hours ago
The 1% also earn 40-45% of all the money, stop defending them.
alvalladares25 | 23 hours ago
I’ll defend any tax payer over the overspending government. We can no longer afford nice things, it’s time to accept that
SUMBWEDY | 22 hours ago
So why are you saying the 1% pay 40-45% taxes when that's their share of income?
Bat for the 10%, they pay 72% of the taxes but only make 42% of the gross income.
vertigostereo | 23 hours ago
War.
https://i.gifer.com/I9q6.gif
xtothewhy | 22 hours ago
Eye-watering indeed. 7.5 trillion dollars in five months alone is staggering. How is this in any ongoing way sustainable?
Trick_Quiet3484 | 22 hours ago
Did we expect anything less from a president who managed to bankrupt several businesses?
HardWorkinAg | a day ago
So for each of the 342,376,200 Americans in our current census, that means we each just got another $900 of debt added to our individual debit sheets. Last. Month. Alone.
extremesanchez1000 | a day ago
I sure would love to see how my $900 was allocated
tehifimk2 | a day ago
Well, $100,000 of it went to a piano for the air force chief of staffs home. So, you own part of a new Steinway, I guess.
StrategicPotato | 23 hours ago
May I play it?
Jormungandr69 | 23 hours ago
No.
Darkmayday | a day ago
Killing brown people for Israel
Solomonopolistadt | a day ago
I guarantee you Israel wouldn't be this bad if it weren't for the US arming and funding their military and Bibi's bloodlust. It's all to line the pockets of defense contractors and to keep trying to hold on to that hard power and keep our dying empire alive
Worthyness | 23 hours ago
also some of the admin's besties' pockets
Schootingstarr | 22 hours ago
on fruit baskets and crabs
https://newrepublic.com/post/207555/pete-hegseth-billions-dollars-fruit-basket-stands-chairs-crab
k_realtor | a day ago
The headline is is wrong.
it is sustainable.
The rich keep hoarding the wealth, the people pay for it.
When it's time to tax the rich, they pass it down to their kids with irrevocable trusts, donate that money to churches that never pay taxes and organizations that end up giving it back in favors.
it's sustainable for at least 942 people.
And when it's not, they'll get on an airplane or spaceship and look for a new country or planet to move to an "expat" because the term immigrant is an ugly term they don't want you to use because they're special.
jedipiper | a day ago
What's the calculation for individual taxpayers? My kids aren't paying anything yet but I sure am.
Titan_Astraeus | a day ago
Approximately 160 million taxpayers so around $2,000/taxpayer
jedipiper | a day ago
I could have used that extra $2k last month. And every month...
TastySpermDispenser7 | a day ago
Every man, woman and child in the usa owes 120k. So if you are a family of 4, you guys owe 480k. Just federal debt. You also owe your state and city debt too.
Fwiw, the only way out is inflation. Thats gonna be the price of a loaf of bread at some point.
Goatsonice | 23 hours ago
And this is how it needs to be framed come election season, what could you, the struggling poor to middle class family from X state have done with an extra $900 in your pocket last month? better more nutritious foods for your child? better classroom supplies? paid another month of rent before being evicted?
its all so nebulous when discussing numbers as big as a trillion a month, it never seems to hit home and land at the dining room table.
AnUnmetPlayer | 23 hours ago
No it doesn't. Government debt is non-government wealth. Where do you think all those debt assets and interest payments go? The debt is a giant stock of savings for the private sector. It's adding to people's financial wealth. It's just doing so in a very unequal way.
HardWorkinAg | 23 hours ago
Treasury bonds are assets to the holder, but they’re liabilities to taxpayers. That’s like saying a household got richer because someone inside the house wrote an IOU. The “wealth” only exists because someone still owes the money.
AnUnmetPlayer | 22 hours ago
> Treasury bonds are assets to the holder, but they’re liabilities to taxpayers. That’s like saying a household got richer because someone inside the house wrote an IOU.
No, it's explicitly not like this. The government's balance sheet is not your balance sheet. The government's liabilities aren't your liabilities. Their liabilities are our assets.
There is also no inherent connection between interest rates and tax rates. They're both policy decisions. Paying out more interest even gives the private sector more money to spend, which causes more tax revenue to be collected as the number of transactions increases. Tax revenue will go up without any additional tax burden being placed on people because economic activity goes up. The whole 'burden on future generations' line is a myth. The debt is our savings, how can additional savings be a burden on future generations?
>The “wealth” only exists because someone still owes the money.
Yeah, the government owes, and the government can't run out of money. Paying out bonds is also balance sheet neutral. Nobody is getting additional assets. It's just swapping a fixed rate financial asset that's a liability of the central bank for a variable rate financial asset that's a liability of the Treasury. They're all liabilities from a currency issuing government. It's why debt levels have no impact on interest rates.
HardWorkinAg | 22 hours ago
It’s a balance sheet…
Treasury bonds are assets to the holder because the government has promised to tax or inflate to pay them. If they truly weren’t a liability to the public, they wouldn’t need to be repaid with taxpayer-funded interest every year.
“Government debt is our savings” only applies to the people holding the bonds. The rest of the country is on the hook for the interest payments.
AnUnmetPlayer | 22 hours ago
Taxpayers aren't on hook and the government doesn't even have to pay interest at all if it doesn't want to. The government spends money into existence. Both the money and the bonds are created out of thin air by the currency issuing public sector. There's nothing inherently inflationary about swapping between the two either. The Fed's repo and reverse repo facilities guarantee the ability to do that as needed. If the debt was inflationary then it already would be because there's nothing stopping people from spending all their bonds at the aggregate level.
The government doesn't spend with your taxes, you pay taxes with what the government spends. Money must be issued first, otherwise there's nothing in the financial system to subtract from. Currency issuing governments earn what they spend, unlike households that can only spend what they earn. This is why tax receipts surged after the pandemic stimulus spending.
>“Government debt is our savings” only applies to the people holding the bonds.
They're assets to the entire private sector in aggregate, but this does get at the distributional issue of who holds those assets within the private sector. The debt equals savings, so for all you people terrified of the debt, you're going to need tax policies that cause those savings to become taxed. Or better yet, stop inflating those savings with unnecessary interest payments.
HardWorkinAg | 22 hours ago
Keynes would probably be enjoying the sh*t outta this thread.
But no. In practicality, and in terms of what a 21st century American public would tolerate - if a government can create unlimited money to pay interest and roll debt forever with no consequences, then there’d be no reason not to fund the entire government that way and eliminate taxes altogether. The reason no country actually does that is because the constraint shows up somewhere else, usually inflation or currency depreciation. Treasury bonds may be assets to the private sector, but they’re still claims on future government payments. Calling them “savings” doesn’t make the underlying obligation disappear.
Technical_Ad3069 | a day ago
Any other country would have had a currency crisis by now. But US gets to continue spending trillions it doesn’t have indefinitely…. Funding for wars and conquests. It has to stop.
cultureicon | a day ago
And the wars aren't even in our interest. It would be one thing if we got land or riches for the wars in the last decades but they are all just for less than nothing.
BoDrax | a day ago
The Epstein class has gotten very rich over the last decades.
WesternUnusual2713 | a day ago
I mean surely the point of war is protect people from a threat, not make money?
Plenty of people make money from war and that is the problem.
cultureicon | 23 hours ago
I was just making a stupid point, of course that it what it should be, especially for a rich country like the USA that doesn't have any need for more land or money. But no, cynically war is and always will be about power, land, money etc. The latest US wars have not been in any interest of the US, not even safety is my point.
feelthecernburn | 22 hours ago
All the wars are for Israel
circuitloss | a day ago
> they are all just for less than nothing.
It's not for nothing. Defense contractors and Republicans get very rich!
Solomonopolistadt | a day ago
I would imagine that the US dollar would become more and more worthless as less people wanna trade with us and our image continues to erode
SUMBWEDY | 23 hours ago
The only thing holding the USD together is the fact there's no better option even now.
China has capital controls, Euro nearly collapses every few years, Japan has demographic collapse, AUD/CAD/CHF lack liquidity.
anony-mousey2020 | 23 hours ago
Currency crisis, yet.
Richandler | 22 hours ago
> Any other country would have had a currency crisis by now.
Uh, no. Show your data before making such a eye roll claim.
feelthecernburn | 22 hours ago
It’s not indefinite. This will be an ugly ending. If ordinary Americans don’t kick Israel out of our politics, starting YESTERDAY, we are going to be fiscally fucked.
ToothyWeasel | a day ago
You mean the party of fiscal responsibility is skyrocketing the debt yet again when they’re in power like every time they’ve gotten power for my entire lifetime?
misterno123 | a day ago
The real question is; with all the debt rising like crazy and the fact that govt pays the interest on the debt with the new debt it is borrowing, how come financial markets are not reacting negatively? How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady? I will tell you why. The global financial system is rigged and manipulated by Epstein's friends. Prove me wrong.
NOLA-Bronco | a day ago
US still has the petrodollar and on a global macro level is still the main reserve currency + largest consumer market.
Petrichordates | a day ago
You mean the two things that we are also accelerating the decline of?
NOLA-Bronco | 23 hours ago
For sure, but the third leg to that stool is that those components create a sort of MAD situation. Collapsing that system means mutually assured economic destruction. So everyone is sort of stuck hoping the bomb doesn't go off.
.......Until the bomb inevitably goes off from the US's aggressively stupid hijinks that like almost all Fascist movements, eventually have their Poland/Second Front in Russia moment.
One of those "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen" moments I suspect.
Not sure it happens under Trump, but the death cult of Reactionary Conservatism and Neocon stupidity in the US simply morphs and takes new shapes, it never dies.
lawtechie | 23 hours ago
That doesn't happen overnight. To replace the dollar as the reserve currency, you need a viable replacement. There isn't one at this moment.
DrOrgasm | 22 hours ago
There is the Euro, and the Europeans wouldn't even have to start it if all of a sudden the global South just started trading in the currency. They've been allies with the US all along but once the juices start to flow they'll most likely follow the flavour.
Most EU governments are supporting the US/Israeli line right now, but trust me, as someone who lives here, the vast, vast majority of the people here do not support this or their governments stance on this and it will be reflected in the ballot boxes sooner or later. They politicians have a very limited window and they know it.
End3rWi99in | a day ago
You'd think that, but so far, neither of those things have really happened.
Lucosis | 23 hours ago
Kind of like skydiving without a chute; for a little while nothing bad really happens.
Vennomite | 23 hours ago
Economic thing happen (that isnt some huge shock) takes about 18 months on average to work through the system and show up in the numbers.
howimetyourcakeshop | a day ago
For now.
LimpAd4924 | a day ago
Because the markets are based on the vibes of a small number of boneheaded finance bros and corporate executives (many Epstein friends).
musicismydeadbeatdad | a day ago
I think this becomes unironically more true as more retail investors start to pile into EFTs and index funds that can anchor the animal spirits
korben2600 | 22 hours ago
This was the inevitable endgame of passive investing. TSLA continues to hover at ATHs even after massive global protests, its brand implosion, and declining sales. Yet it's up +80% YoY. Markets aren't real anymore.
makemeking706 | a day ago
Why let number go down when number can go up?
padizzledonk | a day ago
>The real question is; with all the debt rising like crazy and the fact that govt pays the interest on the debt with the new debt it is borrowing, how come financial markets are not reacting negatively? How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady? I will tell you why. The global financial system is rigged and manipulated by Epstein's friends. Prove me wrong.
Part of it is that this is a nationstate not a household, if it becomes an actual problem in the ground we can raise taxes, which needs to happen anyway, and pay for it
We just keep raiding the store and kicking the can down the road and putting it on the debt books of americans that haven't even been born yet
We could tomorrow put in place public healthcare and rework the absolute bullshit system we have and save all of us 500B a year, minimum, because thats the profit share of our health insurance spending, and its easily going to be considerably higher than that just due to streamlining and redundancy savings-- across the board btw. My mother was a nurse and then went into medical billing, she did it for 40y, she worked for a midsize hospital in NJ and there were like 25 people in her office that just dealt with the absolute fucking rats nest of different insurance companies and how they bill what theie standards and individual syatems are, there are dozens of people in ever hospital that do nothing but call insurance companies to get answers on whats covered and what isnt, every single doctors office either has 1 or 2 or several people in it that do nothing but those 2 things or they waste their own time dealing with it....just getting rid of the middle man and people that deal with all that will save us a metric shitload of money every year, it will also give us EXTREME leverage over pharmaceutical and device companies to get better pricing, THEY also wont need to pay a shitload of people that are just running around doing drug deals with all these little offices and local and regional hospitals
Thats just one thing.
We could easily cut the military budget by 25-50% and still be by FAR the most well funded military on earth, multiples of the next few nations on earth
Im not saying these things are easy but its doable, especially push came to shove....we have a 31 Trillion dollar economy...our debt is fucking outrageous but its still manageable....for now at least
hitliquor999 | a day ago
Because they have the top half of earners in this country putting 7-20% of their paychecks into the market every week.
Fly_Rodder | a day ago
wait until they can turn the social security money over to Wall Street.
skullfrucker | a day ago
I'm with you on this one, rigged to say the least. I smell a reckoning coming soon.
Rmans | 23 hours ago
What's crazy is that what you just described is 100% talked about within the already released Epstein of files. Literally hundreds of emails of Epstein talking to other oligarchs and world leaders about destabilizing post WW2 peace starting in 2011. And, more importantly, tons of evidence proving the US stock market is manipulated and fraudulent since then as well. That's why Warren Buffet recently retired and why Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in the Big short) literally closed his own hedgefund at the end of last year and is now making a ton of public statements about how completely captured the US market is. Everything you just said is not only true, it's easily provable with what's already public in the Epstein files, and anyone of intelligence is acting accordingly. The fact this isn't being talked about daily is just more proof of how captured our media has become.
Important-Captain104 | a day ago
Cause even though our debt to gdp is 130%, most of the west is also above 100%. Japan is at 230% and still has functioning markets. China is currently ~~300%~~ around 96%.
LimpAd4924 | a day ago
I’m a bit skeptical of that China number. Is that measuring the same thing as the US debt?
Important-Captain104 | a day ago
You’re right I was reading the wrong thing. Their total debt to gdp is 300% but ours is higher. Their governmental debt to GDP is around 96%
DrOrgasm | 22 hours ago
The Chinese owe the money to themselves. The US owes the money mostly to China. So there's that.
algelon | 22 hours ago
Lmao what? Most of the US debt is domestic, and China's not even the #1 foreign holder of debt
seridos | 23 hours ago
The US is in a crazy deficit though, especially when you start aggregating the debt. Those numbers for federal govt debt are basically not important,what matters is the total debt(all govt levels of debt+promises/liabilities that aren't officially debt but are the same thing, household debt, and corporate debt).
The US fiscal govt whole is massive though. It's like 7.3% of GDP a year when all the actual liabilities. Italy is like 4% for comparison. So whole the US debt stock looks manageable, the rate of increase is wild.
Petrichordates | a day ago
Ah yes, Japan, such a great economic model to aspire to.
MajorGeneralMaryJane | a day ago
This has been a talking point for anyone who actually works with fixed income securities for years now
RollingThunderPants | a day ago
You know what's really unsettling? The system is so complex, so interconnected, and so dependent on collective confidence that the people inside it are also trapped by it. Central bankers, treasury officials, and major institutions may be managing perceptions not out of malice or conspiracy, but because the alternative of letting markets fully price in the debt reality would likely trigger the very collapse everyone is trying to avoid.
In other words, acknowledging the truth out loud is more dangerous than pretending everything is fine.
AnUnmetPlayer | 23 hours ago
It's not a conspiracy lol. It's just that the mainstream narrative around national debt for currency issuing governments is completely wrong. You'd think that maybe after more than a half century of the opposite correlation of what's expected might get people questioning things, but it's a narrative that just doesn't die.
Treasury yields aren't based on investor demands. Yields are anchored to the policy rate as central banks have monopoly pricing power. It creates an arbitrage situation where one side of the deal can always go to the Fed for better terms if they want. So the yield for any duration is based on the expected trajectory of the policy rate over that duration with a term premium thrown in for uncertainty.
Investors aren't actually trying to price in economic conditions or inflation or whatever else as direct causal variables. They're trying to price in what the central bank will do next. The relationship to the broader economy exists only because the Fed uses interest rates counter-cyclically.
Growing deficits don't cause higher interest rates. In fact once fiscal dominance is reached, which seems inevitable given the state of the US, the Fed will be forced to lower interest rates to prevent an inflationary spiral. The interest expense is fundamentally a policy choice, because the interest rate is a policy choice.
So long story short, bond yields have been falling instead of rising because of the expectation of interest rate cuts by the Fed over the next year or two. The size of the deficit doesn't matter.
links135 | a day ago
The S&P 500 has been mediocre compared to other markets. TSX, the Canadian one has outperformed the S&P over the last 5 years.
That was not the January of last year.
sunshine264 | a day ago
Because they are effectively stealing money and making their buddies rich through government contracts. And they’ll just print more money and inflate away the debt and hurt the average American. The stock market is going up because if your money is in cash, you’re gonna lose it all to inflation. Buy gold!
shaneh445 | a day ago
Almost like it's all made up past a certain point
vulgrin | a day ago
Because if they start panicking then the whole illusion falls down and they are as broke as the rest of us.
joepez | 22 hours ago
Honestly I don’t think anyone can answer that question. Is it vibes? Is it being propped up?
What is clear is that reality and fundamentals left the conversation awhile ago. If they hadn’t then yes the market would be reacting to both the debt growth and war in Iran very differently. Likewise inflation and unemployment. Oh and companies like Tesla and Trump media would have been penny stocks. Yes here we are with some folks trying to defend irrational behavior with logic.
Ateist | 22 hours ago
> How come treasury bonds interest rates are still like 4%? How come dollar's value somewhat steady?
Maybe those who buy treasure bonds don't have much choice in the matter?
I.e. pension funds are legally obligated to invest into certain types of financial instruments and nowhere else.
Foreign governments have no choice due to non-financial instruments through which US projects power.
jerzeett | a day ago
Look up Petra dollar and reserve currency
Hades_Mercedes | a day ago
Should we be taking financial advice from a person that's never seen the word 'petroleum' written out before?
DoubleFar6023 | a day ago
as the world movies away from it and fossil fuels more rapidly than it ever has.
that old trick has rode its last pony.
the nail in the coffin is the slow drip of selling of treasuries.
h2opolopunk | a day ago
Well, the famous ruin at Petra is called the Treasury.
Petrichordates | a day ago
Things trump is actively destroying?
Dry-Cry-3158 | a day ago
The current amount spent on interest payments is about 50% of the amount of revenue generated by the income tax. If the federal budget cut deficit spending immediately and stayed current on all its debt obligations, it would still have $4.1 trillion to spend. Obviously, the current trends are very suboptimal, but we don't have to get hysterical and start making stuff up.
Petrichordates | a day ago
We do though. We've been talking about this issue for years and in the mean time have only made it worse.
Republicans heavily emphasize this topic then of course elect someone like trump who adds more debt than anyone wouldve imagined.
At what point do we actually address it?
Dry-Cry-3158 | 22 hours ago
Who knows? I've been following politics closely for three decades and have heard and read tons of warnings about the federal debt for my entire adult life. None of the predicted calamities have happened. Doesn't mean they won't, but I think at this point it's worth questioning the assumptions these predictions rest on because they are clearly wrong.
Since virtually all currencies are fiat currencies and since the dollar is the global reserve currency, I think it's fair to see that this allows the federal government to safely operate with a fairly large deficit in a way that wouldn't be possible if either of those conditions weren't met. I also think that a lot of analysts ignore how much debt is owned by the federal reserve bank, and the implications of that. There's a pretty strong case to be made from a monetary perspective that federal debt essentially functions as de facto money printing and is essentially taxation through inflation.
Again, I'd say the current situation is suboptimal, but it's clearly functional and shows no sign of impending failure, so it's very much a good idea to examine ones models and assumptions since they are very clearly being contradicted by reality.
poedy78 | a day ago
The $ is the 'de facto' reserve currency + PetroDollar.
Downgrading Treasuries - to the level of France with only 118% Debt to GDP - would have a non-trivial impact on the world economy i guess.
Getting out of the $ as a reserve currency is a complete other mess, but we'll see how the ME thing will pan out.
Some US client states in the Gulf Region are absolutely not amused about US / Israel coup, and we'll have to wait for the fallout after the 'dust' has settled.
My bet is, they will re evaluate their partnership with US re: Petrodollar.
Knighth77 | 22 hours ago
This country is so stupid, it's allowing a conman and failed businessman who bankrupted so many business run it like one of his companies as it watches.
Consistent-Web-351 | a day ago
They have borrowed 50 billion dollars each week without any real fiscal policy to pay it back or control inflation.
They have started an international energy crisis causing prices to balloon overnight
Have also created a tariff war increasing prices for every single American.
And are building the equivalent of a concentration camps throughout America for ICE.
They are stealing 50 billion each day not borrowing it
Edit: corrected the time frame
Flashy_Jello_9520 | a day ago
And threw 17 million Americans off of healthcare!
SFDessert | 23 hours ago
But Republicans are the "fiscally responsible ones." Or so I've been told.
/s
miolikeshistory | 23 hours ago
Not that it’s any better but it says per week right? That’s still 1 trillion in 5 months.
Consistent-Web-351 | 23 hours ago
Thank you for correcting me I misread that.
14.4 billion dollars per day is the most accurate revenue intake I can get for the US government in general.
So that's $7 billion dollars a day that they're needing to borrow to spend.
So what's the actual deficit for the American government per daily spending at this point.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/
Finepry | a day ago
The total budget shortfall to keep all US infrastructure up to date is about $370B a year. The US is choosing to spend money on war and tax cuts rather than infrastructure. $11B to kill some of the Iranian leadership. $2B to kidnap the leader of Venezuela. Trump tax cuts are expected to cost $7.7 trillion. The top 20% of Americans get 75% of that while roads and schools lack funding.
anony-mousey2020 | 23 hours ago
Perfect. No one wants accessible roads when roaming hoards of uneducated masses start migrating, right? Bitter /s
Dripdry42 | a day ago
And the funny thing is that in a year, if Democrats really ever get in again, they are going to get blown up and pilloried for making the necessary changes to fix this problem! It’s going to hurt a lot!
The propaganda is going to be so huge. And we’ll get Republicans again and we will mess it all up again. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over. Voters are uninformed idiots with no sense for history.
Gopher246 | a day ago
Just looking from afar it seems the issue is the media ecosystem, if the dems get back in they should push to fix that. Its hard for voters to ge informed if they are deliberately misinformed.
Dripdry42 | a day ago
I mean at the end of the day I’m all for taking personal responsibility and action when possible . It appears that the majority of people in the USA are not into this, so while I don’t agree with you in principal, I think in practice you are probably correct.
anony-mousey2020 | 23 hours ago
I absolutely agree with your theory as well. At the same time I see repeated failure of people in my own small community to recognize and accept their personal accountability. I feel this has become endemically infectious, making the theory aspirational in current state.
sportsbunny33 | a day ago
💯
anony-mousey2020 | 23 hours ago
I live in Ohio and this is I think exactly why our governor just received the bill to make ranked choice voting illegal. It’s the one thing that can stop this pendulum shift without complete system overhaul.
Thlaeton | a day ago
I’m not saying this but ppl… a lot of ppl… are saying Trump is the biggest welfare queen we’ve ever had. No one abuses welfare like Trump.
Huge amounts of welfare handouts.
yer_fucked_now_bud | 23 hours ago
Official Government Response: "Guys, listen. It doesn't matter if the US goes into severe unrecoverable debt because Armageddon is coming. The end-times are here and God's chosen will ascend to heaven when Greater Isreal is formed and Jesus returns to rapture the souls of all men. And a few women - but no fatties allowed."
Rare-Bee7331 | 22 hours ago
Conservative Trump supporters, "we keep voting the same way and things keep getting worse... so we doubled down and now its broken... i dont understand what went wrong. It must be the democrats fault some how..."
atreeismissing | 23 hours ago
In 2024, the GOP, the entirety of the financial media, all of conservative media, and most of corporate media, went on at length about Ferguson's Law (great powers fall when interest on it's debt exceeds it's defense spending), but not a single peep about it now. It's also why Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget, because that number specifically puts the defense budget above debt spending. The GOP is creating budgets based on the talking points they want for upcoming elections.
Itchy_Swordfish7867 | a day ago
If only the masses understood that “running the government like a business” meant run on debt until the debt becomes so great you declare bankruptcy.
xife-Ant | 23 hours ago
And lower revenue by charging less for your premium service (tax cuts for the wealthy).
3D-Dreams | a day ago
He's going to use up all our missles, give Putin plenty of money for the oil we now need and then leave our country broke and defenseless, no allies left and hand us over to Vlad or the Crown prince of who the hell cares and live his life on Epstein Island.
sportsbunny33 | a day ago
It's why he is canceling / banning renewables like wind and solar. So when the oil is gone/ we can't afford it, we're doubly screwed
SunshineAndSquats | 22 hours ago
This is exactly what they want. Thiel, Musk, Vance, and Trump are purposely trying to destroy the country. They want to turn it into a bunch of nation states run by billionaires.
The movement to ditch democracy in favour of start-up cities run by CEOs
centexgoodguy | 22 hours ago
Don't worry, all that tariff money will eliminate all of our debt concerns - or at least cover the interest. All they have to do is check the tariff shelf like what Trump said back in September: "Last week they found $29 billion and they couldn't figure out where it came from. I said, check the tariff shelf. And they said, 'How did you know that?'" Heck, back in June , Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote a Wall Street Journal piece claiming Trump-era tariffs “generated $37.8 billion in revenue for the U.S. in April and May.” Amazingly, no one really pressed them for details on any of this.
rypien2clark | 22 hours ago
And the tariffs are being paid by other countries, so we're getting all this stuff for free!
Jabba_the_Putt | a day ago
We dont have to cross an ocean, the terrorists are right here in America, terrorizing our own country (and others) from behind a podium in Washington
Ratb33 | a day ago
The goal is his / their greatest grift - the fleecing of the American tax payer money. Trump family and handlers have stolen billions.
And BOTH SIDES are letting it happen.
I mean, these fucks didn’t even call an emergency meeting on the weekend he starting bombing Iran.
We all knew what was coming - was inter heritage docs projects 2025. What nobody saw was a complacent and compliant congress and Supreme Court.
Corruption from the top down.
Wind_Yer_Neck_In | a day ago
Hegseths DoD just admitted to spending an additional $93 billion on basically frivolous bullshit because they had it leftover in the budget and didn't want to return it.
I'd be willing to bet that a huge portion of that was just him literally sending money to friends and family who own companies they could use to send in invoices.
BitingSatyr | a day ago
> Hegseths DoD just admitted to spending an additional $93 billion on basically frivolous bullshit because they had it leftover in the budget and didn't want to return it.
No they didn’t. The total cost of the military was $93B, the frivolous bullshit was like a fraction of a percent of that
llamakoolaid | a day ago
Incorrect: They burned through $93B in the month of September alone to burn the budget.
likamuka | a day ago
>And BOTH SIDES are letting it happen.
LMAO Only one side is currently burning down the world.
ktaktb | a day ago
F that
We have never seen corruption at this scale and it was all enabled by this both sides BS.
We would not be seeing the mass pardons of corrupt white collar convictions if the other side won. We wouldnt be seeing the president rug pulling the stock market or meme coins. We wouldnt be watching commerce secretarys kids buying tariff refund rights for pennies on the dollar while he shills tariffs on TV. We wouldnt be seriously talking about invading canada or greenland.
Both sides are not perfect, true, but only one side is hell on earth, cult, soviet level mindless party over country, party over sanity, party over facts
Wake up
(Both Sides and Hidden Comment History NAMID)
korben2600 | 22 hours ago
Why are Hakeem and Chuck indicating they will vote to approve another $50B for Israel's war? Why is Jared Polis indicating he's about to pardon Tina Peters, the sole GOP official to go to prison for Trump's election fraud? How can our party leaders argue our democracy is under attack while facilitating the attackers and pardoning them? The only answer is they are complicit.
edit: this is the environment that Citizens United created, probably the worst decision in the history of our courts. Allowing unlimited dark money poisoned the well of our politics and created a fundraising arms race where House seats now cost $20M and Senate seats $300M to run a campaign. Keith Olbermann predicted much of what is currently unfolding when that decision first came down.
ktaktb | 22 hours ago
Again
Many issues for sure
But nothing anywhere near trump regime
Period
Worthyness | 23 hours ago
> And BOTH SIDES are letting it happen.
Only one party has the majority in all three branches of government here. Minority can't do anything to stop it besides protest.
OhItsBeenBroughten | 23 hours ago
Ah, the traditional mating call of the low information voter. Booooooth siiiiiides.
Ratb33 | 23 hours ago
Did we or did we not just have a 219-212 vote that had dems joining repubs?
OhItsBeenBroughten | 22 hours ago
You appear to be talking about the House, so I assume you’re talking about the SAVE Act. Literally ONE Dem voted for it. Every single other voted against. Terrible example of what you’re lying about.
Kinarstead | 22 hours ago
Top 10 Republican ideas on how to fix the debt situation.
Mountain3Pointer | a day ago
Like FROM WHOOO. Who the fuck is lending us money anymore and why..... I get it, world economy and whatever. But its so stupid that we are spending all our tax dollars and the world's money on the rich, war, and corporate America.
PTSDDeadInside | 22 hours ago
nihilism, money isn't real, numbers aren't real, laws aren't real, all are subjective and can change and dissolve at any time.
What's a few 100 trillion more debt when humans only live about 80 years and the Median lifetime earnings for U.S. workers is approximately 1.7 million over a 40-year career?
Empty_Football4183 | 22 hours ago
So the guy who bankrupted Atlantic city amd went BK himself 4-6 times is bankrupting a country now? Who could've thought someone who was so bad with money could keep repeating the same pattern? I mean people who voted for this must have been thinking "this time he learned his lesson after going bankrupt so many times"? I guess what was the thought here seriously?
oldbastardbob | a day ago
Where'd all those "fiscal conservative" Republicans disappear to?
Wait, I know. They're all lined up smooching Trumps ass because they're afraid of him and their own political base.
I suppose it's as we thought for the last 40 years. They don't give a crap about balanced budgets and just regurgitate whatever nonsense they think wins the next election.
I'm not sure how you could make it any clearer that the modern GOP is no longer conservative and does not give two hoots about the country, the future, or their constituents. They're only interested in campaigning on the emotional issues that really don't make two cents worth of difference to the economy or direction the nation is headed.
JeffChalm | 23 hours ago
>Where'd all those "fiscal conservative" Republicans disappear to?
They never actually existed. It was just rhetoric to get votes. The fiscal conservatives never once made an effort at fiscal restraint except to try and gut social programs and benefits.
kennykerberos | a day ago
Dick Cheney once said that deficits don’t matter. Maybe he was right.
In short: Cheney was half-right in a cynical, short-term political sense (deficits often don't kill you at the ballot box, and the U.S. has a lot of runway as the issuer of the global reserve currency). But he was oversimplifying the economics—deficits matter a great deal when they're structural, interest costs explode, or they fuel inflation. We're testing how far that runway really extends right now.
anony-mousey2020 | a day ago
Grapsing your sarcasm, and agree.
Legitimately there are times where it may not matter, or rather may matter less than the alternative, right? (Like in a true war, not fabricated war, scenario).
Also, wrt to complexities, GDP/Debt ratio matters, right?
Canada taking a risk on raising their deficit with the lowest GDP to debt ratio of all G7 is very different than our situation.
I genuinely don’t remember was fairly young, when Cheney said that was our US GDP to debt ratio as astronomical as it is today?
Pitiful_Option_108 | a day ago
Here is the worst part about this. Their are people who chose trump because they though oh we need a business man to run the country. Well this is what they do smh. They will leverage debt in the hopes of being profitable. We have seen it in the recent AI boom and how companies are spending crazy amounts of money in a future they are betting on comes true. Some times the bet pays off and other times it fails horribly. And right now this could be one of those where it fails horribly. And the worst part this won't be just a company that fails but an entire country and economy. Smh
sportsbunny33 | 23 hours ago
Probably shouldn't have picked a fake businessman who bankrupted almost every business he ran, including fcking CASINOS! The only time the house didn't win
GothamsTrader | a day ago
Interest costs are now structurally higher than they were and there's no way back. The way to address the problem is to cut spending, which is politically impossible. Another way is to reduce debt via real (vs reported) inflation, slowly making the dollar a worthless paper. Cuts are much better but...
AMundaneSpectacle | a day ago
You forgot to mention raising taxes on the wealthy… especially billionaires
BotherResponsible378 | a day ago
Listen here, you mother fucker. You leave those billionaires alone. If you lay a finger on their balance sheet I'm going to vote for a pedophile murderer to be president.
dust4ngel | 22 hours ago
to clarify, this means "pedophile slash murderer, and not the other way around", not murderer of pedophiles, which you know... comparatively...
dediguise | a day ago
I think they omitted that because we have allowed the problem to progress beyond the point where repatriating taxes on the top 10% is going to fix the deficit. We have allowed the debt to grow to the point where the interest payments are too massive to maintain the deficit structure even after (let’s be honest) marginal adjustments the taxation at the highest income levels.
It’s just like climate change. The wealthy ate gaming the system all the way through and beyond the point of no return.
Greedy_Nectarine_233 | a day ago
No matter why they omitted it, it’s stupid.
Yes you need to cut spending, but increasing revenue through higher taxes is also necessary
dediguise | a day ago
Necessary, but no longer a solution by itself. Theoretically cutting entitlements COULD make the difference by itself, but that would also brutally crush consumer spending.
I think it’s important to highlight that we have passed the point of no return a the original comment did that though omission. Increasing taxes on the wealthy isn’t about stopping the problem, it’s about punishing them for creating it.
I’m fully onboard with it. Fuck the entire Epstein class. Anyone that contributed financially and politically to this should be stripped of assets and left to rot in the deepest hole we can find. It still won’t fix the deficit.
Twheezy2024 | a day ago
The debt grew so fast by not taxing the upper brackets the way we used to. Started with Kennedy, and Reagan put it into overdrive.
dediguise | a day ago
Fully agree, although there was a history of poor deficit management since the Great Depression. This issue isn’t how we got here, it what we do now. The options we had to reasonably change things while retaining quality of life are gone. Conservatives smothered it.
Going after the rich won’t fix the problem anymore, and that’s by design. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go after the rich, but at this point it would be for punitive purposes rather than economically sound ones. We are no longer having a conversation about fixing the problem, just who to punish for the failure.
Twheezy2024 | 23 hours ago
Taxing the rich and cleaning up the defense budget would go a long way to put us back on track for a balanced budget. Would still need more cuts though.
JohnnySpot2000 | a day ago
So if something can't fix something 100%, it's not worth doing at all. Is that the logic you are attempting here?
dediguise | a day ago
I didn’t say it’s not worth attempting. I said the reasons for doing it are not purely economic. It’s about making the people who put us in the position foot the bill, but we (the American people) will be paying the vast majority of it regardless.
We can no longer say just increasing taxes will fix the problem. More importantly, we need to recognize the sociopathic behavior of the elite that got us here and restrict their access to wealth and power so that it never happens again. Not because it will balance the budget, but because they should have to suffer consequences.
DizzyMajor5 | a day ago
It's not much of an argument but really the only one they got.
Fine_Cauliflower3075 | a day ago
You're forgetting how much I would enjoy watching billionaires being taxed all the way down into grinding poverty. That counts for something right.
DizzyMajor5 | a day ago
"the fire has grown so much no amount of water can fix it" type stuff
NOLA-Bronco | a day ago
I don't think that was a mistake.
Same with the not-so-subtle assertion about cutting spending which assumes that current spending, most of which is neoliberal corporate subsidies, couldn't be made more efficient and arguably more universal by simply cutting out the cancer of neoliberal privatization where applicable and reducing corporate subsidies.
ActionJacksonATL24 | a day ago
Hey man we can’t raise taxes on all the job creators. Better to just not tax them at all and anyone making $200k or less annually have a huge tax increase.
catchinNkeepinf1sh | a day ago
Thats 50 billions a week, you drain every cent from bezos and musk and it will be gone by the end of the month.
vulgrin | a day ago
Just think about that sentence. First off the math is wrong. If musks money was liquid he could pay that for SIXTEEN weeks by himself.
Second why do we let ANY one person have that much wealth in the first place? It’s fucking obscene in a nation that won’t adequately feed and clothe its poor, and can’t seem to understand what a healthcare system is.
ND7020 | a day ago
Another way is to increase revenue instead of doing the exact opposite, like with this administration’s boneheaded tax cut.
LimpAd4924 | a day ago
Don’t worry. We kicked many off Medicaid and cut biomedical research at NIH so we could bomb Iran with Israel and give our wealthy another tax cut!
MamaBearForestWitch | a day ago
Or reversing all the revenue cuts that gave more and more breaks to the obscenely wealthy and huge corporations. And clawing back the outrageous budget increases to ICE and the military. And impeaching and removing the guy who has a history of spending recklessly and insanely and then just declaring bankruptcy over and over again.
LimpAd4924 | a day ago
Yup nearly 1/4 of the national debt is from Trump via his deficit spending and 2 wealthy tax cut bills
MamaBearForestWitch | a day ago
Is it up to almost a quarter?? Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ... (iykyk)
tikolman | a day ago
US can always stage a fake coup to eliminate its debt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRgRz3nSG7o
NewImportance8313 | a day ago
It isn't but ultimately the marker decides when it's sustainable. Once interest rates start consistently climbing instead of trading sideways despite fee changing interest rates then I would expect the amount of debt being issues actually being a problem for the market.
lx23xl | a day ago
Reminder : the average life expectancy of male human is 78 years. Tic...toc...tic...toc... Can't wait for this amazing news. Champagne is ready. The world will be thankful that human lives actually end...
schtickshift | 23 hours ago
What institutions did the US borrow the money from? I can’t think of any that have that sort of money to lend. China is not buying US bonds anymore, they are sellers nowadays.
JerseyshoreSeagull | 23 hours ago
In r/economics a post is saying that $50 Billion a week is not sustainable yet within the past 6 years the USA has gone $13 TRILLION deeper into debt.
Tell me how any of that is sustainable or how one is more sustainable than the other???
If neither are, then why bother talking about it? What's going to change that hasn't in the past 6 years???
peathah | 23 hours ago
Hmm 50 billion a week is 2.5 trillion a year. The past six years include COVID. 4 trillion for that
And something about the tax cuts continuing for the rich by sunsetting for the average us citizen. that started in trump 1.
BF740 | a day ago
I know a lot of people think the goldbugs are nut jobs, but let’s be honest the fast rise in gold prices over the last two years is telling us something. Seems to be no concern with our spending in Washington.
JustAnotherMinority | 23 hours ago
Oh yes, don’t we love the party of fiscal responsibility. I love their range. They can add a trillion dollars worth of debt over the first five months of the fiscal year, yet when the plebs ask for better tax credits or better health care regulation, all of a sudden, 100 billion dollars is impossible to find and would break the country..
Rules for thee, not for me.
Ok-Bug4328 | 22 hours ago
We have reached bipartisan consensus that money isn’t real. eg Trump complained that Biden didn’t spend enough on COVID programs.
I think this is insane.
From July 2019. Pre COVID
The New York Democrat argued that ambitious programs can easily be financed through deficit spending.
"I think the first thing that we need to do is kind of break the mistaken idea that taxes pay for 100% of government expenditure," Ocasio-Cortez told NPR's Morning Edition in February.
In doing so, she shined a spotlight on a once-obscure brand of economics known as "modern monetary theory," or MMT.