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Comment by misiti3780 | Hacker News Reader

We are 35 trillion dollars in debt - we are broke. We have go cut costs if we want to avoid catastrophe in the medium term.

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Government debt is a result of government spending into the real economy. It is where we get the taxpayer dollars that we spend, some of which go back to the government itself. A government without debt is also an economy without money.

Governments with central banks can mismanage their currency, but they can't run out of it.

They won't run out of currency, but the people that use it will run out of faith.

> They won't run out of currency, but the people that use it will run out of faith.

Which is what happens when bond yields go so high that governments default. To my limited understanding, US Treasury bonds are used to determine the 'risk-free rate' of return because the US government reliably pays its bills.

When? At what specific (magic) number does everything come crumbling down? We're at ~36 Trillion today, would 37 Trillion the number that will cause people to run out of faith? I mean that's only one more than we have today, surely people won't run out of faith for one more. So maybe it's 40 Trillion? But come on, we're at 36, people can't possibly give up on the US dollar just an 8% increase. How about 100 Trillion? 500 Trillion? I'm not sure you know how this game is played.

I'm not just talking about US citizens, by the way. Foreign alliances are forming to dethrone the dollar as we speak. It will not last forever. I didn't say it would come crumbling down overnight. It will be a gradually shift away from the dollar. To believe the dollar is invincible is incredibly naive.

Why wait to spend that (magic) money at all then? What is the point of setting an annual budget? Earmarking contracts out for all these organizations by little million increments every year seems illogical when you can literally just put a few trillion in their hands today.

Why not spend all 500 trillion today? What are we waiting for?

I am entirely certain you do not believe in your own position.

why not maintain proper accounting? the deficit and enormous debt is a symptom of spending more than we have here, so much more we have to get money from other countries. you can’t do this forever. so what, spend until when? this question has come up repeatedly in the past and i’ve never seen it answered. Where’s the line where those wanting more taxes and deficit switch? How much would taxes and the debt have to be for you to say “this is out of control”?

There's a body of government explicitly built to do exactly that and given exactly that power in the constitution. It's called Congress.

The Executive can also do this.

If we are broke then why do people buy our debt? It's obviously more complex than you make it sound.

because for now there’s a reasonable chance it will get paid off. what happens when the house of cards comes down?

What happens when any house of cards comes down? Could be said about any system anywhere on Earth. Could be said even if the US had zero debt.

nobody would complain about the looming debt crisis if the US had no debt.

what does this comment even say?

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