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How does this compare to the fiscal situation at the time of WWI or WWII? And how does it compare relative to other factors like other countries' finances?

by ilaksh 2y ago

panick21_ 2y ago
Basically the US now is approching WW2 level debt. Just outside of a war. Without all the growth. Without all the other destroyed countries in desprate need of rebuilding. Without the young population. With massive unfunded liabilities in its social programs. With massive amounts of crumbling infrastructure. Basically after WW2, as soon as the war was over debt started dropping. Before the great societ stuff, the US didnt have so many future liabilities. Debt was dropping during Korean War.
fuzzfactor 2y ago
How about the end of the Vietnam War era? From the 2024 article: "In our best scenario analysis, stabilising the fiscal outlook will take years to accomplish, but also require significant action already in the short run, operating on both spending and taxation. A consolidation over a long horizon should not be confused with procrastination. Waiting is costly: the size of the required correction is already sizeable. With debt growing at a sustained rate, delaying action can only make the required correction larger. Even more, waiting is risky." I was saying exactly this was true in the 1970's and unfortunately that's when the significant action failed to be taken. It really was needed in the short run right then but for lenders there was too much to be made by completing the shift away from the stable debt/asset ratio << 1 which had built the country, rapidly over to a variable payment/cash-flow ratio instead. This is not a perfect simulation since real assets are important, but the main thing is it allows the lenders to avoid shrinking themselves, or even grow a bit during times of no actual growth in the "economy" at large. And the payment/cash-flow ratio can be focused on and "responsibly" maintained below 1 since that is a widely-agreed "bad thing" which leads to certain collapse for a financier. But acceptance of this allowed the newly deprecated debt/asset ratio to rise exponentially from its near-zero starting point since additional debts (often at less-attractive terms for the payers) could be piled on more discreetly, and assets themselves are virtually out of the equation too and more ripe for the taking if opportunities presented themself. There was so much more money to be made by making deeper debtors out of those who were established, and adding new debtors to the rolls whose underlying assets were too low to be reasonable under normal times. Assets of the most well-heeled can be better protected, and assets of the masses tapped into in different ways and neither will effect the overall equations or outlook when the equations are based on "money supply" and "velocity" rather than (remaining) net wealth or real assets. It's a slippery slope but if assets are being tapped into they dwindle, regardless of how the payment/cash-flow figure may take prominence and provide untold opportunities for those adjacent to the cash pipeline. Debt/asset can then smoothly climb much closer to 1 without gaining enough attention, and even smoothly move above 1 with no further apparent effect ! But let that "hidden" debt/asset ratio remain above 1 long enough, or even above 0.5 beyond "2 whole periods of time" and assets will not stop declining toward zero until done. Automatically, without additional debt being incurred. And the ratio goes through the roof even faster. Unless something major is done about it. Meanwhile the sky remains blue and nothing can be seen on the horizon that looks any more threatening than it has been the last few decades. The action needed now is the cost of waiting this long.

How does this compare to the fiscal situation at the time of WWI or WWII? And how does it compare relative to other factors like other countries' finances?

by ilaksh 2y ago

How does this compare to the fiscal situation at the time of WWI or WWII? And how does it compare relative to other factors like other countries' finances?

panick21_ 2y ago

Basically the US now is approching WW2 level debt. Just outside of a war. Without all the growth. Without all the other destroyed countries in desprate need of rebuilding. Without the young population. With massive unfunded liabilities in its social programs. With massive amounts of crumbling infrastructure. Basically after WW2, as soon as the war was over debt started dropping. Before the great societ stuff, the US didnt have so many future liabilities. Debt was dropping during Korean War.

fuzzfactor 2y ago

How about the end of the Vietnam War era? From the 2024 article: "In our best scenario analysis, stabilising the fiscal outlook will take years to accomplish, but also require significant action already in the short run, operating on both spending and taxation. A consolidation over a long horizon should not be confused with procrastination. Waiting is costly: the size of the required correction is already sizeable. With debt growing at a sustained rate, delaying action can only make the required correction larger. Even more, waiting is risky." I was saying exactly this was true in the 1970's and unfortunately that's when the significant action failed to be taken. It really was needed in the short run right then but for lenders there was too much to be made by completing the shift away from the stable debt/asset ratio << 1 which had built the country, rapidly over to a variable payment/cash-flow ratio instead. This is not a perfect simulation since real assets are important, but the main thing is it allows the lenders to avoid shrinking themselves, or even grow a bit during times of no actual growth in the "economy" at large. And the payment/cash-flow ratio can be focused on and "responsibly" maintained below 1 since that is a widely-agreed "bad thing" which leads to certain collapse for a financier. But acceptance of this allowed the newly deprecated debt/asset ratio to rise exponentially from its near-zero starting point since additional debts (often at less-attractive terms for the payers) could be piled on more discreetly, and assets themselves are virtually out of the equation too and more ripe for the taking if opportunities presented themself. There was so much more money to be made by making deeper debtors out of those who were established, and adding new debtors to the rolls whose underlying assets were too low to be reasonable under normal times. Assets of the most well-heeled can be better protected, and assets of the masses tapped into in different ways and neither will effect the overall equations or outlook when the equations are based on "money supply" and "velocity" rather than (remaining) net wealth or real assets. It's a slippery slope but if assets are being tapped into they dwindle, regardless of how the payment/cash-flow figure may take prominence and provide untold opportunities for those adjacent to the cash pipeline. Debt/asset can then smoothly climb much closer to 1 without gaining enough attention, and even smoothly move above 1 with no further apparent effect ! But let that "hidden" debt/asset ratio remain above 1 long enough, or even above 0.5 beyond "2 whole periods of time" and assets will not stop declining toward zero until done. Automatically, without additional debt being incurred. And the ratio goes through the roof even faster. Unless something major is done about it. Meanwhile the sky remains blue and nothing can be seen on the horizon that looks any more threatening than it has been the last few decades. The action needed now is the cost of waiting this long.