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This article is about total global debt, which includes the private sector. Many of the comments here have misinterpreted this as government-only debt, which is

This article is about total global debt, which includes the private sector. Many of the comments here have misinterpreted this as government-only debt, which is not correct. Only about 1/3 of the debt is government debt right now (a little under $100 trillion globally). If you look up where your federal tax dollars go, there is a significant line item for servicing debt. Those interest payments go to holders of the government debt, which range from US citizens to foreign countries. You can find charts and estimates of who holds that debt if you want to understand where it goes. The popular narrative about governments printing free money isn’t really true in the simplified meme-style presentation that we hear online.

rsync 6y ago
"Those interest payments go to holders of the government debt, which range from US citizens to foreign countries." ... and also the fed[1] which, currently, holds more than 10% of the US debt[2]. "The popular narrative about governments printing free money isn’t really true in the simplified meme-style presentation that we hear online." Perhaps - but it is getting more true all the time. In the case of the ECB it is getting more true all the time in the absence of any oversight, transparency, adherence to constitutional law or democratic processes[3]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/business/economy/fed-december-meeting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/business/economy/fed-dece... [2] http://www.crfb.org/blogs/fed-buying-our-new-debt http://www.crfb.org/blogs/fed-buying-our-new-debt [3] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n01/perry-anderson/ever-closer-union https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n01/perry-anderson/ever-...