When one party -- a company, a person, a government -- owes itself by its own rules, that does not mean anything externally. https://www.cbpp.org/research/reco

When one party -- a company, a person, a government -- owes itself by its own rules, that does not mean anything externally. https://www.cbpp.org/research/recommendation-that-presidents-fiscal-commission-focus-on-gross-debt-is-misguided https://www.cbpp.org/research/recommendation-that-presidents... notes > Most economists agree that the debt held by the public is what really affects the economy. As the Congressional Budget Office stated in its June 2009 report on the long-term budget outlook, “Long-term projections of federal debt held by the public, measured relative to the size of the economy, provide useful yardsticks for assessing the sustainability of fiscal policies.” In contrast, “gross debt . . . is not useful for assessing how the Treasury’s operations affect the economy.”