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Comment by newaccount2021 | Hacker News Reader

newaccount2021

the debt limit is approached, extended, approached, extended...is there really a point to the exercise?

since the entire world economy would implode if the US defaulted, we might as well just eliminate the debt limit and force the world to eat the penalty of letting the USD become waaaaay-too-big-to-fail

debt hawks warned of end-times if our debt ever hit $5 trillion...then $10 trillion...then $20 trillion...

if the US can survive $31 trillion in debt, I'm not sure why $50 trillion would sink it...or $80 trillion...or whatever

we're headed there anyway

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> if the US can survive $31 trillion in debt

How can you be sure it can? $31T is the current value, but it has only been at this level for maybe a year, after sharp increase during COVID pandemic. It's entirely possible that this debt will bring the US down in the next couple of years - too soon to tell.

Finance is 100% figurative and has no 1:1 connection to consumption. We’re LARPing figurative truth of the before times to make the elders feel validated for accepting old semantics, and investment decisions we weren’t there to observe even happened; we just have to accept.

Progressives are demonized as violent revolutionaries to maintain the ruse. Most progressives on Main Street just want ALL their neighbors to be accepted in the local community. That’s turned into a fear mongering meme to empower government and maintain the public-private collusion occurring between politicians and aristocracy.

There is zero evidence aristocracy is necessary to maintain civil society and prevent reality from imploding. There is a lot of evidence of aristocrats invoking “end times are here!” if their figurative identity is questioned.

The exercise has nothing to do with economics, fiscal policy, or governance. It’s just political grandstanding for votes.

There’s a decent argument the President is constitutionally obligated to ignore the debt limit.

If Congress doesn’t want the money borrowed, they shouldn’t authorize spending more money then was collected.

This is technically possible. The treasury authorize a payment, even though it doesn’t have the money in it’s general account, then it’s up to the federal reserve to decide if it wants to approve the payment.

I for one think it's not very wise to perform experiments on the entire humankind. Maybe we'd be fine at 80 trillion, but what if we are not?

This is being done entirely because the Republicans kind of have the house and love being obstructionist. That's the entire reason. If they also had the senate, it would be a trivially passed vote. If they held neither the house or senate, it would be a trivially passed vote.

It has nothing to do with actual concern about our debt, and is entirely about pleasing republican voters who believe that the US congress doing anything is bad, and others who just want to own the libs.

This is basically the only thing that republicans have power over right now in congress, because nobody trusts house Republicans anymore because of just how goddamned crazy some of them are, and how often they go back on their word.

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