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Comment by cgore | Hacker News Reader

We're way past bankrupt already. That's what debt is. Zero was a long time ago.

Being in debt just means one owes money. The US government has assets and various investments. Being bankrupt is when you can't pay back your debt, which the US most likely will be able to do.

Going from 50% deficit spending to paying off equivalent of 100% of GDP (which enjoys a 2-5% annual growth) amounts to "won't be able to". We'd have to cut spending by 1/3rd just to stop increasing the debt. We'd have to route all federal revenue to debt for 5 years to pay it off. Ain't happening.

Ah, but most of the US debt is denominated in US currency... It's a convenient loophole to use if it ever becomes a more serious problem.

Yes, if tanking your own currency, probably bringing down the economy and starting a panic, counts as convenient.

Problem there is: there's only $4T in actual currency, but $18T in federal debt.

It's not like we'd have to print more gold.

debt =/= bankruptcy. Unrecoverable debt is bankruptcy. While the argument could be made that our debt is past a recoverable point, it is not a certainty.

"While the argument could be made that our debt is past a recoverable point..."

I'm not sure it could, unless I'm misunderstanding. The US could print up 15 trillion dollar notes tomorrow, and pay off all of it's debt. Of course, this would cripple the economy in a matter of hours, but it would still pay off the debt.

Right. The usa can't go bankrupt because they have their own currency. Also, a majority of usa debt is held by Americans, the remainder held by foreign governments with no better options to park trade surpluses (the USA playing an imprortant role as the most reliable debtor of last resort).

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