> I think the author doesn't appreciate that the debt is being repaid... #1 we are doing gargantuan "stimulus" transfers of money... #2... IF any issuer of debt

> I think the author doesn't appreciate that the debt is being repaid... #1 we are doing gargantuan "stimulus" transfers of money... #2... IF any issuer of debt, like a bank, gets in trouble, like in 2008 or March 2020, they are bailed out. Changing who's holding the hot potato is not the same as repayment of debt. In both of your examples, it's the government who's assuming the debt from corporate debtholders who have (presumably) milked it for return already in the way the article describes. But, as you point out: > ...govt debt still needs to be repaid. But that can happen via #1 ["The US will become a net exporter (and to some degree, it always was) of inflation."], or via taxation. Taxation is a no-go - even if the political will could be mustered in the US to increase taxes, who are you as the government going to tax? The companies who were so indebted you had to bail them out, or the private individuals who've already been put through the wringer by the companies? So we have to export the debt in some way - but it stays debt, and it has to be paid. > Its just that the time horizon for repayment is so long, and hard to observe, that it may lead to the conclusion that the debt is not being repaid. I suspect that if it takes long enough then it doesn't really matter whether the debt is "repaid" in some technical sense because the negative outcomes associated with default will have already taken place.