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Would a national debt of $0 be a point where the debt is a full-on crisis? Would a national debt of $999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 be a point where the de

Would a national debt of $0 be a point where the debt is a full-on crisis? Would a national debt of $999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 be a point where the debt is a full-on crisis? If only there were some kind of conclusion we could draw from this, even if we don't have an exact number. Oh well, back to eating paste.

munchler 2y ago
Disagree. If we had the ability to borrow $999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 and spend it on useful projects, we’d be mining helium on the moon, colonizing Mars, terraforming Venus, building a Dyson sphere around the sun, and warping to Alpha Centuri. Our gross planetary product would probably be able to pay off the debt in a week or two.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  That doesn't work, particularly the Venus and Dyson sphere ideas, because being able to borrow that much money doesn't actually give you access to the requisite resources and labor. Resources and labor isn't something you can just conjure out of the void as easily as adding zeros to an entry in a bank's database. If you brought such a ludicrous amount of money into existence, the amount of steel or man-hours a dollar could buy would be greatly diminished. Furthermore, you presume the money would be spent on successful and profitable projects, rather than being squandered away. If only it were so easy.
  - munchler 2y ago
    Yes, but it’s an absurd number to begin with, so I think some poetic liberty is justified. To make it slightly more realistic, let’s say the Galactic Development Bank of Betelgeuse offered us that amount as a loan, along with access to their expertise and trading partners, with 1000 years to pay it off. My actual point is that in the ratio of debt to GDP, perhaps we should use projected future GDP in the denominator, rather than current GDP. This is why a hard upper limit on debt (or even debt-to-GDP ratio) is a dubious idea. It’s all about what the government does with the money.

munchler 2y ago

Disagree. If we had the ability to borrow $999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 and spend it on useful projects, we’d be mining helium on the moon, colonizing Mars, terraforming Venus, building a Dyson sphere around the sun, and warping to Alpha Centuri. Our gross planetary product would probably be able to pay off the debt in a week or two.

lupusreal 2y ago
That doesn't work, particularly the Venus and Dyson sphere ideas, because being able to borrow that much money doesn't actually give you access to the requisite resources and labor. Resources and labor isn't something you can just conjure out of the void as easily as adding zeros to an entry in a bank's database. If you brought such a ludicrous amount of money into existence, the amount of steel or man-hours a dollar could buy would be greatly diminished. Furthermore, you presume the money would be spent on successful and profitable projects, rather than being squandered away. If only it were so easy.
- munchler 2y ago
  Yes, but it’s an absurd number to begin with, so I think some poetic liberty is justified. To make it slightly more realistic, let’s say the Galactic Development Bank of Betelgeuse offered us that amount as a loan, along with access to their expertise and trading partners, with 1000 years to pay it off. My actual point is that in the ratio of debt to GDP, perhaps we should use projected future GDP in the denominator, rather than current GDP. This is why a hard upper limit on debt (or even debt-to-GDP ratio) is a dubious idea. It’s all about what the government does with the money.