3 ms·

There's no such thing as "publicly held debt" in USA. USA borrows immense amounts of money from foreign economies (China and others) with no intention whatsoev

• seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  > USA borrows immense amounts of money from foreign economies (China and others) with no intention whatsoever to ever pay the principal back. That isn't true. US treasuring notes are in demand because they are incredibly reliable. The US doesn't default on them, so they are safe places to stash billions of dollars that you might not want floating around in your economy (which is why China is such an enthusiastic customer for US Treasuries). > USA spends a huge portion of the money that it borrows on its military. US spending on military is 3.1% of GDP, expected to go to 2.3% by 2033. The US is not borrowing from other economies to fund its military, they don't have to. If that number starts creeping up (like to say 10% of GDP), bad things will happen. But if other countries stop lending us money, we aren't really going to be in trouble at all (we just stop selling treasuries, our military is funded as a part of American production, it isn't using much production from China). In comparison, China spends 2.7% of its GDP on its military, so not far off from the USA, although the PLA is sort of entangled in the private economy, so it isn't so clear.