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Over half of US debt is held by Federal retirement funds -- e.g. Social Security. So you put that money away for your retirement, and that retirement fund autom

Over half of US debt is held by Federal retirement funds -- e.g. Social Security. So you put that money away for your retirement, and that retirement fund automatically buys close to no return t-bills. It's all really a giant pyramid scheme, and is only tenable with unsustainable population growth. The US can run an enormous deficit for as long as they can convince the population that their retirement funds should pay for today. Savings bonds end up being the poster child of the debt, but less than 1% of the debt is actually bonds like that.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
It’s more like the other way around: the USA must run large deficits so that massive retirement savings have somewhere to go. Money can’t be saved without being lent. The only question is whether retirement savings are better invested with the us government or more privately like in a 401K (this is what Bush 43 wanted to do with his SS reform). Supply is just as important as demand when looking at debt.