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Consumer debt level had dropped sharply post 2008 and slowly came back up along with wage and saving rises. That's good. Corporate debt level has risen sharpl

• prostoalex 8y ago
  > Corporate bond coming due will be re-financed at higher rate now. If ever. A lot of high-quality corp debt was issued around (a) record low interest rates, (b) high tax penalties for repatriating foreign earnings into the US. Neither of those are a factor anymore.
• quadrangle 8y ago
  Government debt is new money, but money isn't economic fuel, it just manages economic distribution. If you make more money, it has zero productive impact directly. What it does is designate wealth claims to whoever gets the money at the expense of whoever doesn't get the new money. So, if the government gives every citizen a billion dollar check, besides causing inflation, that drastically dilutes the relative purchasing power of Jeff Bezos. It's not that different from the government simply taxing out of existence a good portion of the money held by the wealthy. Either way, it's redistribution. And it's a powerful and important tool for carrying out political agendas which themselves may be good or bad based on your political values.