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Comment by gortok | Hacker News Reader

If it’s impossible to discuss GDP without politics, then it’s impossible in our current political climate to discuss whether or not debt as a function of GDP is a valid measure of an issue, and the practical effects of that issue.

It would seem that functionally the only real world impact would be spending more money to service that debt.

Ok, what about just cancelling that debt? Some economists have said “it’s money we owe ourselves”, so why not just forgive ourselves of our own debt? What would be the real world impact? What would happen?

We keep attaching political value judgments to this without reasonably discussing the practical implications free of our own political dogmas.

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>Ok, what about just cancelling that debt? Some economists have said “it’s money we owe ourselves”, so why not just forgive ourselves of our own debt? What would be the real world impact? What would happen?

It's tied to Treasury Bonds that people hold so they would become worthless.

Yeah. "Cancelling the debt" sounds great. "Cancelling my pension or my IRA" doesn't sound so good.

> Ok, what about just cancelling that debt? Some economists have said “it’s money we owe ourselves”, so why not just forgive ourselves of our own debt? What would be the real world impact? What would happen?

It's not money we owe "ourselves", it's money we owe each other. When you buy government bonds you're lending money to the government. Cancelling the debt is just stealing the money everyday people and investment institutions have lent to the government. What would happen is people would lose a huge portion of their investments and pensions and it would be catastrophic.

Honestly it's wild to spout an opinion in this thread if you don't understand this.

Eventually all the debt is canceled right after dollar looses it's reserved currency status

You keep using words like “us” and “ourselves” but I don’t think you understand that you’re not in the same class as the people who lend the money or the people who lobby for how any public resources are going to be spent at all.

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