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No one serious is worried about American solvency. The paper says 50% over the next 10 years, but even most economists misunderstand how the monetary system wor
by epsteingpt 2mo ago
No one serious is worried about American solvency. The paper says 50% over the next 10 years, but even most economists misunderstand how the monetary system works.
There are so many other issues to worry about at the moment more immediate than solvency.
- Grombobulous 2mo agoThe word in the headline “solvency” versus the phrase in the article “debt crisis” is a major difference. To your point, I don’t think anyone has to be worried about American solvency, but a looming debt crisis doesn’t seem like a stretch of imagination at all.
- bilekas 2mo ago> but even most economists misunderstand how the monetary system works. It seems to be more of a subjective topic to me. Otherwise we would all have a perfect plan and never any monetary concerns. Highlighting weak links in the system is I believe a perfectly healthy thing to do. A sanity check would go a long way these days.
- d--b 2mo agoWhen enough non-"serious" people believe it, they still sell the bonds, and shit can hit the fan pretty quickly.
- root-parent 2mo ago>> There are so many other issues to worry about at the moment more immediate than solvency. The U.S. government spends about one-third! (roughly 33% to 39%) of individual income tax revenue strictly to pay the interest on the national debt and that is not even paying off the principal balance itself: https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/cbo_baseline_february_2026.pdf https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/cbo_baseline_february... A raise in interest rates for treasuries, can bring this into 50% to 60% within days. Yeah...worry about other things...
- softwaredoug 2mo agoThat 33%-39% goes back into stimulating the global economic system where America is at the center. To people like me that own US Treasuries. You’re not wrong. But it’s not as simple as 33-39% disappearing into a black hoe.
- root-parent 2mo agoYou are trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps...
- epsteingpt 2mo agoCorrect - no one can stop the fiscal train!
- root-parent 2mo agoLove the user name...Would love to have an LLM trained on Epstein writings...
- lotsofpulp 2mo agoWhy is the individual income tax revenue important to compare to interest costs? Total interest cost as a percent of total revenue seems like a more holistic comparison, which is 15%. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- DarkmSparks 2mo agoThe US ticked all the boxes that are credited with the break up of the USSR last year aiui. Anyone not taking that seriously is in for the most hilarious of surprises.
- danesparza 2mo agoTell that to the Romans.
- wowoc 2mo agoThe Romans couldn't manufacture new cash by flipping bits in computers' memory
- cherryteastain 2mo agoThey did the equivalent in their time which was cutting the precious metal content of their coinage.
- TSiege 2mo agoThe Romans used the gold standard the US does not
- danesparza 2mo agoThe original quote that I was responding to was "No one serious is worried about American solvency. The paper says 50% over the next 10 years, but even most economists misunderstand how the monetary system works. There are so many other issues to worry about at the moment more immediate than solvency." And the only point I was trying to make was this: Nobody expects an entire (powerful) system of government to stop being a thing ... until it stops. And other powerful governments have stopped being a thing. I'm sure there were plenty of pundits in ancient Rome who said things like, "No one serious is worried about Roman solvency". And eventually, they were wrong. --- Side note: It doesn't matter if unserious people think these things or not. The article's premise is about the ideas of "too much debt" making the bond market a more risky bet. If people aren't buying bonds this will eventually slow (and stop) cash flow to governments (including the federal government) to the point of it being a crisis, because bonds cover 25% of our Federal government spending.
- epsteingpt 2mo agoThe Romans didn't have the Federal Reserve.
- Zigurd 2mo agoOur creditors will be reliable because of American soft power. Do you think we could lose that in single presidential term, much less a year? Wait...