$16.7 Trillion

[Tricky Dicky]

Feck me that's a lot of money. This is the amount of debt the USA has, is it realistic that it will ever be repaid or is it a burden that the country will carry forever more? Should the American public be worried by such large sums of debt? Serious question, I have no idea about this situation.

I'm so old, I remember when a billion was a lot of money ..... oh, that was only 5 years ago.

 

[Stat Brother]

Oh I see white people don't live in poverty in the south, mid west, or any where else in America ?

Of course white people are in poverty.
My point (and it was way to early to even attempt it) was the hackneyed old adage, rich get richer poor get poorer.
Poor and black in America isn't new and certainly isn't getting better.
All the while 'the children of W' seem hell bent on (illegally) making bad situations worse like Health Care because it doesn't effect them.

I know many Americans extremely rich and extremely poor, and what strikes me is there is no middle ground, and those in the so called middle ground seem to live hand to mouth with cards and debt and upside down mortgages which have crippled them. Yet most of them still walk round thinking the world revolves around America.

From the outside looking in, with plenty of references to American culture, all very liberal.
It would seem the middle (class) ground are being pushed to the bottom instead of inspired to succeed, hardly The American Way.

 

[beorhthelm]

That's the debt. But what are we worth as a whole? All the money in the world divided by 7bn.

i cant recall what the total global net worth is, but it works out to several $10000s each ($40k or more?)

What I am not clear about is that if one branch of government owes money to another branch of the same government, if push came to shove, is it as big of a disaster if they default on that part of the debt, rather than say defaulting on the monies owed to other countries or privately run pension funds etc?

not directly, but are you going to be happy holding US treasuries if they've stopped paying US pensions? and are the pensioners going to be happy?

 

[halbpro]

As is often quoted, though, the US has never defaulted on its debt.

There's a strong argument that they can't ever default on the debt, at least not via Debt Ceiling wrangling. The 14th Amendment guarantees all US debt in perpetuity, which to my mind makes any cap like the Debt Ceiling fundamentally unconstitutional. Of course some people who are a) actually constitutional scholars and b) much smarter than me disagree, but I'm not sure how you can read "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned" any other way (and there are some lawyers who agree with my way of thinking).

Thanks for this.

I understand the principle of how government raises money through US Treasuries, and how that is repaid, and that anyone could buy them.

What I am not clear about is that if one branch of government owes money to another branch of the same government, if push came to shove, is it as big of a disaster if they default on that part of the debt, rather than say defaulting on the monies owed to other countries or privately run pension funds etc? Afterall, that part of the debt is effecting the US government as a whole only. Does that make sense or am I being thick?!

I suspect this is the plan, but it's a bit daft. They have to pay interest to themselves at some point, and I'm not even sure how that works. Surely putting the money into the main pot is a better plan, unless there are a couple of departments that are determined to strike out on their own.

 

[hybrid_x]