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

[punisheddead]

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.

It would be absolute political suicide for anyone to even attempt this. Not saying you're wrong but I doubt any winning candidate would ever try this. This would also lead to immense social unrest, which could lead to actual collapse. It's not happening. At best it might be phased out veeeeeery slowly.

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.

That's where you lose me. It would have direct no effect on other countries social or medical systems simply because they're subsidized and regulated, in fact other countries social systems are struggling even without the US defaulting. It would be economically devastating for many countries which could harm social systems in the process.

 

[Sketch Relics]

It would be absolute political suicide for anyone to even attempt this. Not saying you're wrong but I doubt any winning candidate would ever try this. This would also lead to immense social unrest, which could lead to actual collapse. It's not happening. At best it might be phased out veeeeeery slowly.

They don't have much of a choice in the matter, they can either wait until the problem is so big that the programs collapse on their own and have to be removed regardless of who is leading or rip off the band-aid and lose some political points. If it leads to some sort of collapse or social unrest, then collapse or social unrest is inevitable because you're either going to cause it fixing the problem or ignoring the problem.

That's where you lose me. It would have direct no effect on other countries social or medical systems simply because they're subsidized and regulated, in fact other countries social systems are struggling even without the US defaulting. It would be economically devastating for many countries which could harm social systems in the process.

In retrospect I should have specified healthcare rather than social services in general, too used to thinking about the USA where most social stuff is healthcare.

It would hurt them far more than you are giving credit for, the companies that develop and sell the medication and technology used in the healthcare sector are largely funded by the USA through US sales and the very, VERY large proportion of research funding they give out. (it's around 80% of the total global funding, with the next runner up being the UK at a whopping 4% and yes, this is a part of the healthcare cost comparison that people like to use when asking why the USA pays more for worse outcomes) The US suddenly being unable to afford this would, at best, shift the cost onto everyone else. Which would put them into a situation similar to where the US is now and as you said they are already struggling. If they can't take the cost than the companies will simply cease to exist and they will, instead, lose access to the medication and tech needed to treat people with their systems.

 

[Caspar]

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.

I don't believe in US hegemony. I don't really have an issue with Trump's foreign relations; I don't think he did a bad job, but I do think Biden was awful. I don't care about this whole 'rah rah dictators' talk. If the Koreans want a dictator, that's cool. We should talk with him and make good deals. Putin is definitely popular in Russia and is a good statesman, we should likewise respect him. Iran, China, etc. all have decently sufficient leaders. This ideological hatred for foreign powers and their systems is bizarre - it's none of our business how they govern themselves.

Trump did not attempt a coup, that's a laugh; he's a fat, boomer Zionist not Caesar. Clearly, there was voter fraud in 2020 that caused him to lose the election. I live in once such state where the voter fraud was transparent and absurd.

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

The Republicans have always been worthless. They're the party of losing with grace. They don't conserve anything.

I dislike Trump, because he's a traitor to White people who falsely postures as the Great White Hope.

 

[alCannium27]

I like Trump; I have not been so entertained like I did in the past decade because of him.

 

[containercore]

The national debt has been a gorillion dollars for as long as I've been alive and I suspect nothing will happen if the US doesn't pay it back because it's still worthwhile to maintain trade and military alliances with the US. And what's anyone going to do really? Send the repo man to take back the Louisiana Purchase?

 

[Caspar]

The national debt has been a gorillion dollars for as long as I've been alive and I suspect nothing will happen if the US doesn't pay it back because it's still worthwhile to maintain trade and military alliances with the US. And what's anyone going to do really? Send the repo man to take back the Louisiana Purchase?

What happens is the US will have ever-mounting interest payments which will cut into our budget. If we ignore our interest payments and don't pay the debt, we don't get any more loans because we'd be a bad debtor. If we don't get loans, the government won't have the funds for its budget. No matter what we do, the US will end up unable to sustain its current expenditures which will invariably lead to the weakening of the country.

It's less that they'd be the repo man so much as they'd be cutting the junky off of his fix.