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> A promise from the government to pay you something in 30 years is inherently a promise to take the resources from your children, because there is nowhere else
by omegaworks 9y ago
> A promise from the government to pay you something in 30 years is inherently a promise to take the resources from your children, because there is nowhere else for it to come from.
I'm frankly surprised at the level of ignorance in these comments. Debt is not zero sum in every regard.
Debt in the service of investing in something that will provide a return is not bad debt. For example: Investing $1 into things like preschool programs returns benefit to society of $3-$7. [1] Programs like universal preschool access are no-brainers yet they meet intense resistance from austerity-pushers on both sides of the aisle.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/20/obamas-claim-that-every-dollar-spent-on-pre-kindergarten-education-earns-7-back/?utm_term=.89f8ddbcc200 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/...
- AnthonyMouse 9y agoThe point isn't that the government should never borrow money, it's that it can't lend money to itself. It could easily be that there is a net benefit to society of collecting tax dollars and spending them on preschool, but you aren't adding anything by pretending the tax was to fund a retirement program even though the money was immediately spent on preschool. The preschool program is independent of the retirement program and could exist without it with no change to anything except for the fiction that the tax revenue was for retirement and the debt for preschool instead of the other way around.