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Comment by dataviz1000 | Hacker News Reader

> landed a $10 billion software contract with the U.S. Army

The United States has ~$38,000,000,000,000 in debt which means a baby born in the US will get $1000 in Trump Bucks to invest in S&P 500 along with a $111,000 share of that debt with its $3,000 a year interest per person. Can someone explain to me how long this will be sustainable?

I'm a little sad that I'm not getting any free borrowed money in order to funnel it into $100M mountain properties. However, I'm trying to be objective. Given this situation what is the investment with the little bit of wealth that I have acquired? Do I need to worry about this not being sustainable and crashing?

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I notice that when anyone says anything negative about the rich on the internet, people show up at lightspeed like you insulted their mom to defend them

Because stereotyping is not, in fact, OK when you do it.

Not a single billionaire worth shedding a tear over.

Too much influence, too much power over others, and way more than their share of... Everything.

Because we're all temporarily embarrassed startup founders who haven't exited yet.

This attitude is what’s beautiful about the United States and is in large part responsible for why it’s so wealthy.

There’s a widespread faith and believe in the idea that there’s opportunity in every corner, regardless of familial status or other shortcomings.

This belief is largely factual, as the vast majority of unicorn founders and billionaires come from an upper middle class uninteresting background.

Couldn’t you also say it’s largely unfactual, since the vast majority of strivers and grinders never escape their economic class?

I guess it depends on what opportunity means to you. Does it mean something that’s “likely” or “less than one in a thousand”? To me, a “one in a thousand” chance to strike it rich is not good enough to justify the immense suffering our economic system causes.

Our economic system is actually the only thing that reduces suffering to this extent. It’s basically eliminated poverty, hunger, and healthcare scarcity.

When I say “our economic system” I am not talking about capitalism generally, I’m talking about the US system specifically, where we are:

51st in percentage of the population that lives in poverty [1]

Decent but worse than social democratic countries like France and Germany in hunger [2]

Ranked below Canada, France, Germany, the UK in healthcare outcomes, which all have more socialized systems than we do [3]

So I stand behind my broader point: the culture of individualism in the US benefits a select few and hurts us as a whole.

1: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r... 2: https://journalistsresource.org/home/food-insecurity-health/... 3: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/sites/default/files/2024-09...

Calling it "poverty" is a misnomer - in the United States, even the poorest get food, healthcare, and housing.

This is not a productive, helpful, or interesting comment.

If someone has a good argument regarding x, it is not a good response to say “why are you defending x?” Just respond to the argument on its merit. You’re not adding anything useful to the conversation.

Buy gold and silver. Seriously. If you do not see the precipice we are a top of I have nothing else to say. ever since the great recession the Fed has been propping up the economy with low interest rates and Quantitative Easing. There is no way out of this but for an even greater depression.

All these fake trump bucks and investment plans are not for the children, they are for the investors that need the money in the market as another way to prop it up. The whole thing with Dell giving this money to these kids? Bullsht. He gave it to himself and to other investors. Nothing but a new kind of stock buyback plan.

Get ready to see poverty, and get ready to help each other. We are living through the 1920's again and it is crazy very few see it.

Doesn't feel so roaring.

Not for you…

get ready to help each other

This. This will make all the difference, everything else is secondary.

In today’s media/social-media hellscape, how does one even begin to build a community? Every front page is filled with negativity, divisiveness.

I used to think preppers are nutjobs. As I grow old now, it feels more like they have a point

Good question. First start as small as possible. You dont need to design a massive system and burnout is a real possibility... which leads to: find groups already set up around you. We have a local food pantry that also cooks for people. It's ok to test drive various groups until you find good fits. There are various ways. Im helping a group get their non-profit status atm. Not super visible or boots on the ground but needed/useful. Other groups just need people to help reach out on social media.

It's as much a state of mind as physical actions and good for you for starting to see the need and opportunities.

> Can someone explain to me how long this will be sustainable?

It fails through stagflation. There are lots of people speculating the US is doing that right now, but since their most recent inflation numbers are bad, nobody has the data to say it for sure.

Just increasing government debit isn't a problem by itself. It becomes a problem when that raising debit isn't making the economy grow.

The debt will be inflated away, we'll lose access to cheap debt, and tech-company bonds will be the new treasuries.

ultimately we may be better off over the long term since the firehose of government money creates a lot of market distortions and inefficiencies.

Better not skip the ads or your retirement savings will tank…

> since the firehose of government money creates a lot of market distortions and inefficiencies.

You mean elite capture¹ of government resources. Government money has repeatedly shown to create a lot of wealth, but the government should be free from the oligarchy. The monopolist sponsored narratives don't match with the data.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_capture

They can take your stuff faster than you can make it.

Don’t worry about it - you know why? Because if the entire thing crashes, then everyone crashes with it, and there’s a million people (or more) that have a lot more skin in the game, a lot more power, and therefore a lot more incentive to make sure this doesn’t crash.

This is not your battle alone, so don’t worry like it is.

They're going to issue a bailout that saves themselves via your paying for it all.

That happens a lot... Too Big to Fail should never be a concept.

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