> The US is constantly paying off old debt with new debt. Except this year the cost of those funds quadrupled -- which means, even more debt. And? Why is this

> The US is constantly paying off old debt with new debt. Except this year the cost of those funds quadrupled -- which means, even more debt. And? Why is this a problem? Given the UK has never (AFAICT) had a surplus, that means they've simply continue to roll over debt, dating back to the South Sea Bubble (1700s), Napoleonic Wars (early 1800s), Crimean War (late 1800s), and WW1 (1900s): * https://www.theguardian.com/business/blog/2014/oct/31/paying-the-price-of-war-britain-makes-good-on-historic-debts https://www.theguardian.com/business/blog/2014/oct/31/paying... The UK has been doing it for four hundred years: they have in several instances been over 150% debt-to-GDP, and twice went over 200%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#H... (Their current woes are of dumb decisions unrelated to fiscal issues, though the decisions are not helping the economy.) > If interest rates stay high for several years […] You mean like they did in the 1980s? * https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-yield-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-... * https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS * https://ritholtz.com/2016/10/long-history-long-10-year-us-treasury-yields/ https://ritholtz.com/2016/10/long-history-long-10-year-us-tr... Over the long-term (centuries), the general trend of interest rates is downward (with sporadic spikes, which often correspond to wars): * https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interest-rates/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interes... * https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2020/eight-cen... For most of the 2010s people were complaining about inflation being too low (along with interest rates).