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I don’t understand how it’s possible to generationally take “...massive debt to pay for entitlements that will eventually have to be paid for by their grandchil
by rdtwo 7y ago
I don’t understand how it’s possible to generationally take “...massive debt to pay for entitlements that will eventually have to be paid for by their grandchildren”
The debt is there but really it’s a wealth redistribution/accounting problem. Someone owns the other side of the debt, and considers it an asset so in aggregate it’s a net zero.
The problem really is that debt that can’t be paid won’t so are we really just looking at some sort of large scale accounting trick where someone is more wealthy than they actually are.
- joelx 7y agoIf we don't pay the national debt, the US economy would suffer enormously. Eventually people would lose trust in the US dollar itself causing hyperinflation which leads to the worst disasters in modern history.
- howard941 7y agoThat won't happen unless idiots run the Treasury because it's easily rolled over into new bond issues. The worst of the lies are the ones justifying needlessly painful austerity that get trotted out every couple of months equating sovereign debt with household debt. And a little bit more (not hyper) inflation instead of this disinflation we're stuck in would be very helpful to debtors.
- rdtwo 7y agoThe point is that in aggregate the entire generation probably both owns and owes the same debt. Redistribution is clearly happening between groups and country but the entire pool sums up to near zero