I’m curious. The US is bankrupt: the national debt is far higher than they can ever repay. Who is lending them this money, and isn’t this the same course of action that the US took during the second world war? The UK only paid off their lease-lend loans from 1940-50 very recently.
The national debt is complicated, but a slightly inaccurate way to simplify it is that this is money owed by the United States to the United States. Yeah China owns a chunk of it and so do other countries, but the majority of it doesn’t matter when it comes to economics. The US is far from bankrupt financially. Morally though…
It’s also worth expanding on this by noting that 35% of the debt is debt from one government agency to another. Another 34% is held by various financial institutions who use it as a protection against financial risk as even if the market crashes they’ll still have a basically guaranteed (and now very valuable) asset to cash out to keep their customers safe, while only 24% is held by people, institutions, and governments outside the United States.
Together we’ve just gone over 93% of the national debt.
Also, they way we paid off this debt last time was that 50% effective corporate tax rate and a 91% top income tax rate during the 40s, 50s, and 60s, which as we all know was a really terrible time for the American economy./s
I’m curious. The US is bankrupt: the national debt is far higher than they can ever repay. Who is lending them this money, and isn’t this the same course of action that the US took during the second world war? The UK only paid off their lease-lend loans from 1940-50 very recently.
The national debt is complicated, but a slightly inaccurate way to simplify it is that this is money owed by the United States to the United States. Yeah China owns a chunk of it and so do other countries, but the majority of it doesn’t matter when it comes to economics. The US is far from bankrupt financially. Morally though…
My bad. Misunderstood figure.
It’s also worth expanding on this by noting that 35% of the debt is debt from one government agency to another. Another 34% is held by various financial institutions who use it as a protection against financial risk as even if the market crashes they’ll still have a basically guaranteed (and now very valuable) asset to cash out to keep their customers safe, while only 24% is held by people, institutions, and governments outside the United States.
Together we’ve just gone over 93% of the national debt.
Also, they way we paid off this debt last time was that 50% effective corporate tax rate and a 91% top income tax rate during the 40s, 50s, and 60s, which as we all know was a really terrible time for the American economy./s