How does Agora feel about the amount of American Public Debt?

[pickleman]

Here is two graphs. The first is the absolute amount of interest paid on US debt which is at the level of expenditure on the US Military. The second graph is the total public debt as a percentage of the GDP.

Do you think that the Americans can stabilize these graphs? Does it matter? What do you think will happen in the future if this trend is not reversed... or least no attempt is made to reverse? What will be the long term representation? What will things look like? How will this effect other countries?
Discuss.

 

[MySpace Tom]

It's not meant to be reversed. Otherwise, the wage slaves would be freed. The system is designed to devalue over time so that nobody can save or get ahead. You must always keep working. Forever!

 

[Caspar]

Eventually it will cause the state to destabilize, and then we'll really start looking (and feeling) like the late Roman Empire. If you thought we had 'anarcho-tyranny' now. HAH! Buddy just wait.

I don't pretend to know when the dollar will break, but I just do not believe this is possible indefinitely. It's just not conceivable. The money represents resources. Resources aren't infinite. Eventually you can't borrow for resources that aren't available.

In any case, the sooner the better. If things break faster, there's better hope for recovery afterwards. The longer the problem drags on, the worse the consequences will be.

 

[sleepwalker]

AFAIK we are trying to slowly inflate the economy in order to turn the debt into something repayable and we keep fucking with interest rates in order to do so. Luckily for the US, its still the safest investment to make because of its global influence, economic dominance, and cultural soft power.

Our debt will continue to get bought, assuming Japan figures out its current deathspiral.

 

[Ashman]

Ah, the irresponsible spending habits of American, truly the nation reflects its culture. Well America being the financial and political centre of the world is simply too big to fail.
That is, if it has exemption from the second law (it doesn't, will die!).

 

[sleepwalker]

Ah, the irresponsible spending habits of American, truly the nation reflects its culture. Well America being the financial and political centre of the world is simply too big to fail.
That is, if it has exemption from the second law (it doesn't, will die!).

We are familiar with boom and bust cycles, the American people will persevere. The US is absurdly strong economically, and our standard of living is quite agreeable to the rich globally.

We just need a few rough years where the working class gets their needs addressed and the middle class rebuilds.

 

[Ashman]

We are familiar with boom and bust cycles, the American people will persevere. The US is absurdly strong economically, and our standard of living is quite agreeable to the rich globally.

We just need a few rough years where the working class gets their needs addressed and the middle class rebuilds.

Good optimism, hopefully you will manage to fix your problems.

 

[Caspar]

Good optimism, hopefully you will manage to fix your problems.

I'm skeptical. From what I see in my industry and the trades I try to contract with, competency is dropping like a lead balloon. Given America's performance in Afghanistan, and the failure to supply Ukraine adequately, I think it's reasonable to say that the cracks are really beginning to show.

Moreover, the problem is systemic. I don't think large American institutions - like the major firms or government, have the capacity to reform to the needed degree to stay competitive. You see this especially with companies like Intel now, but then you also have firms like Kodak, IBM, even Tesla to a degree. They stay afloat because of their public-private partnerships. As businesses, their culture is dead inside. They're just managerial, bureaucratic nightmares.

 

[sleepwalker]

I'm skeptical. From what I see in my industry and the trades I try to contract with, competency is dropping like a lead balloon. Given America's performance in Afghanistan, and the failure to supply Ukraine adequately, I think it's reasonable to say that the cracks are really beginning to show.

Moreover, the problem is systemic. I don't think large American institutions - like the major firms or government, have the capacity to reform to the needed degree to stay competitive. You see this especially with companies like Intel now, but then you also have firms like Kodak, IBM, even Tesla to a degree. They stay afloat because of their public-private partnerships. As businesses, their culture is dead inside. They're just managerial, bureaucratic nightmares.

The competency crisis was a lack of foresight by companies who once trained highschoolers for the job.

However, not to snitch on myself, Im hoping for a Kamala presidency. Good chance she keeps Lina Khan from Bidens cabinet, whose been spear heading many anti-trust lawsuits recently. We can force competition by breaking up monopolies, and Im hopeful google loses adsense. This is good for workers and talent, but will put pressure on learning.

Not to mention oldheads always underestimate the youth. Its part of the reason so many of them were Biden/Trump to death.

Anyways, we have anti-trust laws specifically for when industries become stagnant and parasytic. Its about time we fucking used them.

 

[pickleman]

I'm skeptical. From what I see in my industry and the trades I try to contract with, competency is dropping like a lead balloon. the cracks are really beginning to show.

Moreover, the problem is systemic. I don't think large American institutions - like the major firms or government, have the capacity to reform to the needed degree to stay competitive.

I have witnessed this first hand. Its quite insane what is going on. Canada has this issue as well but multiple times worse since it has braindrain to the USA.

I am personally struck at what services will the government choose to cut? The government will have its hand forced to increase its budget by increasing taxes and issuing bonds. They will most definitely choose issuing bonds. And issuing bonds leaving the federal reserve at the Helm of a sinking ship.

Ok inflation goes up, so they increase rates and sell more bonds. But by increasing the rates they increase the interest due on those bonds they sold. This requires the federal reserve to sell more bonds to pay for the increased debt burden.

Then inflation starts to fall.

The issue when inflation falls is that now the government has to slow issuing bonds and decrease the rates. They will be forced to increase taxes or they will be forced to issue more bonds and drive deflation. Without tax increases deflation will start to rip at various companies and cause wage decline. What is fun is that raising taxes also causes deflation, but at least the debt ceiling will not be increasing as much. What is interesting that the wage stagnation/declines and firm bankruptcys will force the government to inject cash into their society via bond issuance. At this point the currency will be in hyper inflation, as the economy is stagnate/declining and money is being pumped into it.

Of course humans are motivated by a lot more things then just money. They created a control system based on so few variables none of which are not the prime control force for the control system. Humans of course are motivated by money, but for most money is not a god merely a neccessity to live. Youll not maximize your earnings because you need to relax.

This tight rope of control is why the government is focusing on AI. They are going all in on AI closing the loop on this unstable control system. This has severe negative concequences for humanity. It requires government issued AI mind control.

 

[Hypatia]

Further evidence of the Falling Rate of Profit and the deterioration of the entire monetary system. This cannot be reversed, this is the logical end point of where we are heading.

 

[Waninem]

Personally I don't think the debt's even remotely in the range of payable anymore, and it hasn't been for years. Stacked in 1 dollar bills, it's currently tall enough to reach the Moon, almost 10 times over. I think it's by design; politicians and anyone who's friends with said politicians have been enriching themselves with assets and contracts for years, and when the house finally collapses they can just walk away with their pockets full while most everyone else is dealing with Wiemar Republic levels of inflation. But that's just my schizo take, of course.

(And I do think inflation will be the end result. Wiemar tried to print its way out of the war debts it was in, and as a result the value of its money collapsed. The US is more or less doing the same thing, just in a managed way.)

 

[punisheddead]

I doubt the US will be able to pay off it's debt any time soon. Going by a person bases that's over 100k of debt per person and you don't need to be an economist (although I technically am one) to see that it's not going to happen. Even more worrying is that the congressional budget office flat out said that the debt can't be repaid and that it's only going to get worse.

US is on it's way to default and that would be catastrophic for anyone holding US bonds which doesn't just include US individuals and businesses but countries as well, Japan being the biggest holder of US debt would probably shit the bed even further on a default. Also the federal reserve buys bonds for newly minted cash, that's how most debt is actually made and why debt skyrocketed during Covid.

US has last been in a surplus in 2001 (~130 billion), ever since then it's been in a deficit reaching an unsurprising record in 2020. Even excluding 2020 the trend of an ever increasing deficit is undeniable. The debt in that timeframe has increased from around 10 trillion in 2001 to over 34 trillion in the current year. The US simply can't pay it down and maybe that wasn't even the plan at first.

For the US to get out of the problem it's in it needs to earn more and spend less, simple right? Well not really since those options are very unpopular since the standards of living (for the west) have declined substantially. They could raise taxes but does anyone want that? They could cut social security even further and put it in the grave even faster but again no one wants that. So what's going to happen? It's only going to get worse as even the CBO is expecting the deficit to grow from 2 trillion in 2024 to 2.8 trillion in 2034, in GDP to debt terms it would go from 99% to 122%.

There's no feasible solution that would also please the people. Not only that but the US is also battling higher the usual interest rates. Why is FED raising the interest rates important, wasn't that a good move to combat inflation? Well yes but you also have to keep in mind that government debt has a maturity rate on it and when the government is in a deficit it doesn't have the money to pay instead getting into more debt to pay the old debt. Hmm that reminds me of certain P thing, but I can't remember what it is... Anyways, it's a problem because before the debt would have been sold at low interest rates while now it's sold at high interest rates. The interest rises and in turn that also increases the expenses the government needs to pay. Again, CBO only expects this to rise.

So what can the US possibly do? They can and might have tried to inflate the debt away. How would that work? Well it's simple the value of the currency holding the debt goes down due to inflation and the government that pays back debt at a fixed rate with currency that is worth a lot less. Great for them but not so great for the average person. The US has already done this once after world war 2 to reduce it's debt to GDP ratio.

So how would they do it today? The FED and it's "quantitative easing" aka printing even more money. Giving the government more money to spend and also increasing inflation. Now the plan is for government spending to increase productivity and incomes in turn giving the government now a bigger cut. Eventually the past debts would end up seeming meaningless as all the hypothetical investments and income increases and all that other good stuff starts to trickle in. Now that's all great in theory but what will happen in practice?

Well look around. You get unchecked inflation, and when you have unchecked inflation you get economic instability and lower standards of living, at the worse even the collapse of the US dollar itself. Will this happen? Probably not, the regular person feels and has already felt the consequences of persistent "quantitve easing" a plan that seems to have just ended up failing. So the FED stepped in and raised interest rates to tackle inflation as it was not sustainable. That's why the 2% inflation is generally the goal, to make the debt seem less bad and keep it reliably sustainable, but the debt has reached levels far beyond that 2%.


So TL;DR: Shits fucked. "How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." - Ernest Hemingway

 

[Digital Cheese]

If it actually matters and something happens, then it will probably fall soon. Economy has been getting worse and worse for a long while, so it's not like this would be unexpected. I'm hoping to be prepared for the fall of the economy with tons of gold before it happens, and to be prepared for the fall of civilization with other resources like farms, but it probably won't happen for a long while. I'd recommend everyone else prepare with gold and silver as well, considering the fact that they will still be usable even if the economy falls normally. I must admit it's funny gold went from $35 per ounce or so before they switched off the gold standard, to over $2000 per ounce.

If something happens for once, it is so over.

 

[Ashman]

If it actually matters and something happens, then it will probably fall soon. Economy has been getting worse and worse for a long while, so it's not like this would be unexpected. I'm hoping to be prepared for the fall of the economy with tons of gold before it happens, and to be prepared for the fall of civilization with other resources like farms, but it probably won't happen for a long while. I'd recommend everyone else prepare with gold and silver as well, considering the fact that they will still be usable even if the economy falls normally. I must admit it's funny gold went from $35 per ounce or so before they switched off the gold standard, to over $2000 per ounce.

If something happens for once, it is so over.

Anything except water and ammunition is an useless speculative aspect.

 

[Caspar]

The competency crisis was a lack of foresight by companies who once trained highschoolers for the job.

However, not to snitch on myself, Im hoping for a Kamala presidency. Good chance she keeps Lina Khan from Bidens cabinet, whose been spear heading many anti-trust lawsuits recently. We can force competition by breaking up monopolies, and Im hopeful google loses adsense. This is good for workers and talent, but will put pressure on learning.

Not to mention oldheads always underestimate the youth. Its part of the reason so many of them were Biden/Trump to death.

Anyways, we have anti-trust laws specifically for when industries become stagnant and parasytic. Its about time we fucking used them.

Being for Kamala is a funny one, but I won't shit on someone promoting anti-trust laws too much. I fully agree that we should be actively prosecuting the big corporations and breaking them up.

In all honesty though, the orange cheeto and Kamala are both worthless candidates. I don't really care who wins the farcical election. Maybe I'd even prefer Kamala just to spite the treacherous Republicans.

 

[pickleman]

Being for Kamala is a funny one, but I won't shit on someone promoting anti-trust laws too much. I fully agree that we should be actively prosecuting the big corporations and breaking them up.

In all honesty though, the orange cheeto and Kamala are both worthless candidates. I don't really care who wins the farcical election. Maybe I'd even prefer Kamala just to spite the treacherous Republicans.

This is probably a topic for a new post but voting is really a means of spiritual selection and will never result in any real economic reform.

Society is much too complicated for it to be possible for people to vote on it. So you are given very basic /flavours/ of issue to "vote" on.

I mean, how important is abortion being legal at the federal level compared to the state level? Is this really an issue? Some people take issue with killing fetuses and others do not. But all I know is that this wedge has nothing to do with the "System" itself.

Of course the dems will campaign on an "anti big business" flavour, but will they actually break up big business? Probably not if history is something of value. They will most likely raise taxes on the middle class or continue deficit spending.

The repubs will campaign on reestablishing rust belt jobs, but all they will be able to do is keep some coal mines open and cut social services.

the political system is so complicated that a dictator could get power and they will be restrained by the most convoluted beurocracy in history (I think only Canada and ex British colonies have the Americans beat), along with a pool of sociopathic power hungry collegues. The Chinese beurocracy is complicated, but that is moreso for the citizen not for the ruling classes.

AI governance is a real thing that is used today already. And this is what the Americans are banking on (pun intended) to maintain their tight rope of QE, deficit spending, interest rates, etc

There is so much at stake that the AI governance must utilize mind control against the population. A decent portion needs to be manipulated into making various economic decisions. Ie: investments and consumer purchases. You can maintain an economy if you can maintain consumer confidence. Hence the need of mind control. We know they use mind control, but but what is unique these days is the pairing of mind control with AI & Mass data collection.

How do you know that the products you buy is of your free will? How do you know that you day to day decisions are your own? I would say more Agoreans probably have control of their minds, but we also know the boomers are essentially mind controlled at this point and many millennials. A boomer will non ironcially ignore common sense and spend on things they dont need because they submit to mind control, they willingly watch ads because they actually enjoy them, they provide comfort. They watch BLACKED romcoms on the tv because its "traditional". Tiktok is merely a means to extend mind control further to zoomers and it seems to be working.

This sounds bad, but AI mindcontrol is what is keeping the West alive atm.

 

[Amadis]

America has a debt based economy. This means its working just fine. Throw any notion of values and resources out of the window because we exist off of imaginary numbers written on god's ledger.
In this sense a collapse is not only inevitable but desirable.

 

[sleepwalker]

Being for Kamala is a funny one, but I won't shit on someone promoting anti-trust laws too much. I fully agree that we should be actively prosecuting the big corporations and breaking them up.

In all honesty though, the orange cheeto and Kamala are both worthless candidates. I don't really care who wins the farcical election. Maybe I'd even prefer Kamala just to spite the treacherous Republicans.

I vote Kamala because Trumps track record (and general negative effect on people in meat space), makes it a pretty easy choice. I was going to abstain in the event of a Biden/Trump rematch.

I believe in US hegemony, and it seems to work best when the person running the show smiles and earns personal respect from foreign powers. Trump was usually seen as unstable, buffoonish, easy to swindle, and cozied up to literal dictators. Then, he took a page out of their books and tried to use third world tactics to overthrow our election. We aren't fucking Venezuela, we luckily avoided a Maduro situation.

Mike Pence didn't endorse Trump or go to the RNC, bc his old boss almost got him killed on Jan 6. That is 3rd world behaviour that embarrasses us on the world stage. In fact, the DNC was packed with Republicans who used to work for Trumps cabinet, and only 3 of the 40ish people he chose were willing to endorse him again.

The worst I can find about Kamala is that she proposes some socialist policies that specifically target working class people. She wants to continue down Bidens path of cutting taxes for 100 million americans, and not renewing Trumps tax cut. + Has the trust buster in the cabinet.

Big Corporations get bribed all the time, and it seems in their desperation to avoid another 4 years of volatile Trump policies they've extended that courtesy to the common man. The policies are small, and bandaids for larger issues yes, but at least we'll get more stuff like the Insulin price cap. I legitimately doubt she's anti-capitalist, especially since she didn't onboard AOC as the vice pick.

edit for clarity:

Mind you I skew heavily conservative socially, and only skew liberal economically because for the last 2 decades its been a constant victory lap for increasingly monopolistic conglomerates. I believe Monopolies are the main reason capitalism starts failing, and trust busting I believe can inspire further growth while preventing more people from finding real communist policy attractive.

The Republican party used to be a party of responsibility, family values, and prudence. Its now the Party of Donald Trump.

 

[Sketch Relics]

IIRC it's not as bad as it looks, like half or so is interdepartmental and can just be axed if they really need to. Also If you think about it as being similar to a persons own dept it's like someone making 50k per year taking out a 350k loan, which isn't impossible to repay and due to the shear scale of the actual dept and income of the USA, is far easier to payback than a layperson at the same proportions.

It can be payed in it's current state without too much issue
HOWEVER,
this is going to require the death of the social services which currently consume most of the budget and are taking up a larger portion of the budget every year. Medicare, Medicade, Obamacare, foreign aid, and Social security are all probably going to get torched as they are simply unaffordable and are most of why the US is having money issues. Depending on when it happens it might end up killing other countries social systems as well, since the USA is partially subsidizing their medical cost through pricing disparity.