Is a democrat in office?
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Yes No
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| |stop immediately_______deal
Clinton's balanced budget and surplus is a bit of an outlier, and my understanding is that it had two causes. One was the line item veto, eventually overturned. The other was a booming economy and no major wars (peace dividend). We could have the latter now, of course, if we didn't go get into wars that don't concern us.
Bush is when I'd say the Republican Party gave up any actual belief in fiscal restraint. They still use it rhetorically because it sells with their base but they do the opposite when in power, which means they clearly don't really believe in it.
Trump is the biggest spender, and I don't think you can blame it all on COVID because he's still doing it. This shouldn't surprise anyone. As a shady hustler "businessman" he was known as the "king of debt" and borrowed and walked away so many times many banks would no longer deal with him under any circumstances. He's really one of the legendary practitioners of predatory borrowing. Along with "any publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right," his other motto might be "if you owe the bank a million dollars you have a problem; if you owe the bank a billion dollars the bank has a problem."
You'll note even the minority party rarely does much about it, like, proposing concrete spending cuts or anything. Not quite never, but rarely. Or pushing actual cuts through a branch they control even if it will be shot down by another. Proposing a concrete cut would open them up to criticism. They just complain vaguely about the spending.
He also claims the number is temporary because of tariff refunds, and that they will reduce the debt with more tariffs.
Just because there's no magical boundary number doesn't mean a metric can't become increasingly more shitty, and suddenly turn into a bad outcome. Not every response is linear.
It's dumb, greedy, selfish politicians, and they come from all generations, including yours and mine, and in the future they'll come from generations not yet old enough to run.
Boomers is a stupid term used by people who only understand easy answers.
I expect various emergency measures to try to keep things afloat until the election. By "afloat" I mean, specifically keep the numbers everyone is looking at looking "good", mostly, the stock market indices, the various US Treasury rates, and the US Dollar Index. After that, who knows. And the fact that I expect them to try doesn't guarantee they will succeed. There's plenty of motivation for forces who want them to fail at that task to take measures to strike while the iron is hot.
[0] https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/01/26/two-santa-clau...
What's more interesting is the long, overarching news stories that span decades, e.g. BRICS, and the demise of the petro-dollar
If US bonds are at 5 per cent, your banker will add their margin on top and your bank loan will be at least 7 per cent or higher if they fear a rise in interest rates and inflation. Investors will be much more discerning and demand higher risk premiums to move away from risk-free yields. As there are far fewer sectors capable of offering such returns, investment will concentrate on a very small number of sectors and companies (does AI ring a bell?).
It is therefore the bond yield that affects us directly, rather than the volume of debt alone. The volume of debt does have an effect, however, as the bulk of the interest is paid by issuing new bonds. If the government repays with cheaper bonds, it isn’t too serious; but if rates rise, the impact on budget deficits is exponential.
The thing is, the more debt and interest there is to pay, the more bonds need to be sold. To absorb this huge supply, the market demands higher yields to attract buyers, which in turn drives up borrowing costs for everyone.
Repaying the interest on debt held by a Norwegian pension fund has only a very minor impact on the US real economy.
US policy will artificially lower the interest rate to stimulate the economy. Also, the spending of the federal government will continue to increase above the tax receipts.
This will result in inflation. Which is great if you owe money, since you are paying it back with cheaper money.
But, the interest rates being low will make it easier to borrow? The resulting divide by zero in the economy (meaning an exception that there is no solution to) will result in the US government repudiating it's prior debt and making the 'new dollar'.
This will cause a couple of years of chaos.
How about paying back the principle when the bond comes due?
It is not as though the US Treasury can afford to wait until it finds a buyer at lower yield. It absolutely must sell these bonds to pay off the principal on the old ones.
Scenario 2: AI and robotics deliver growth on par with semiconductors and internet. Couple of decades of the economy growing faster than the debt will put it in manageable ratio.
USA is really rich in resources, extremely well defended by geography, so I guess they will make do even in the worst scenarios.
then that the debt has been accelerating with either party in power - means this is a problem that won't be solved politically by the current actors i.e both parties.
Don't get me wrong, these are giant numbers and we shouldn't be spending like this. But We have been spending way more than we bring in since 2003, and it hasn't been an issue.
Countries have a debt crisis when their debt is huge and their interest rate is off the wall. Pretty much the market deciding that they are cooked.
Wake me up when GDP is stagnant and interest rates are climbing over 15%. The US is still the global leader on multiple fronts with a well diversified economy.
There are about 164,000 individual taxpayers in the US.
So each taxpayer is paying around $7,300 each just for interest on the debt.
Which is more than Canadians pay in taxes for universal healthcare.
Your number is too low still. Half of those filers are not contributors, they receive refunds. The figure is more like ~65 million taking on this tax burden, so likely closer to 15k (rounding math)
Not that they'll ever do that ofcourse.
At the same time, pull back on the spending. Or maybe even pull back on the growth in spending. No need to go to a full Doge; rather just pull it back a bit.
Why we can't do this, I am flummoxed.
> Why we can't do this
* https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...
that level of military spending is never going down and will only increase by design
something the average consumer has absolutely no control over and no ability to solve
we just wanted healthcare and homes, instead we got endless wars and bombing civilians with tomahawks
> we just wanted healthcare and homes,
Of course they do. Grow a new fucking party and vote for it. Better than one half f the population hating the other half. Just what politicians of either branch enjoy.
I've always seen that as an excuse to spend more that you have. Its a trap that is difficult to get out. It is the same as taking more personal debt that you can service. But in the case of the government the bank never says no.
The problem is it is forever, and it is growing.
Fantasy that you can do this for 50 years.
Yes, printing money is inflationary.
Crash the system
-> Blame the others, exploit the crisis, topple the institutions
-> Retvrn to the gilded age.
The heavy damage done to the USA by means of self-sabotage is not unintentional. Public discourse/media is over-focused on Trump. Although he is over his ears in corruption scandals, he isn't the genius behind it. The ideologues behind Project 2025 are the real interesting figures, but we barely hear about them. Instead of root case analysis, we have daily drama and performances from publicity actors. The average Joe is distracted with all kinds of nonsense while the Overton window moves.
The real shit will begin when the financial world will factor in the chance of a successful self-coup. Hoping for the best, but it will take more than a decade for a constructive movement in power to limit the damage, and it will take a generation of cultural and institutional reforms to make the state more resistant against anti-democratic coups.
Bessent is especially moronic financially, if he actually had what it takes to perform adequately in his position, Trump would not stand for it.