Please educate me, oh Cool Guy Steve.

Government debt is usually denominated in the currency that government issues. They can print themselves out of debt at any time. At the cost of inflation. And that currency getting devalued against the world's trading currency, the US dollar.

So if the country in question has a huge and diversified economy, this is less of an issue. And if the country in question can print more US dollars, and has never defaulted on its debt in centuries, I don't see how they would let that go.

The actual risk to an investor in US government debt of not getting paid is zero, unless their name is China and they start WW3.

Now, does this mean US government debt is a good investment? That's a different question.

I'm pretty sure I don't know any of the work from experts but isn't it incredibly unlikely that the US will be unable or unwilling to pay their debt? And doesn't that form the basis of their rating? asking genuinely because that's the limit of my understanding.

it isn't ignorance, he's right

there is no external context for a buyer of debt to assess value outside of sovereign currencies, which are basically ALL junk for G7 nations

the other G7 nations with worse stats all have AAA...its meaningless...if you want to buy G7 debt, you MUST buy toxic waste

maybe one day Mars will issue high-quality debt backed by hard assets...until then...