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gumpythegreat t1_iy890nk wrote

And the largest holder of US debt is ... US citizens, investing their money in the single most stable and risk free investment to spend it in the future.

The only concern is when the cost of servicing the debt (ie interest payments) becomes too high that the government struggles to pay for services.

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Jrapin t1_iy9wemx wrote

There is no struggle for the US gov to service the interest. The US gov is the issuer of all the US dollars, it's nothing more than key strokes to service the interest.

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gumpythegreat t1_iya32m7 wrote

If it started to reach the point where the government was printing extra money to service the debt, we would be in trouble. But we're far off, partly because there is also tremendous global demand for US dollars as a reserve currency and de factor international currency across the world

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ForgotTheBogusName t1_iyaz8pp wrote

That time may be closer than you think. There is some good research called “The Dollar Milkshake Endgame” that details hyperinflation and our path to it. It was written more than a year ago and we’re walking it now. I’ll see if I can find it and update this post.

Edit: check out the Dollar Milkshake Endgame here. This is part 4.2, but links to the previous research are in there too.

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Concerned_Asuran t1_iya8976 wrote

No man. He means the US government literally can't owe dollars to anyone. Cities, and States, sure, but not the Fed. It's impossible because the US has monetary sovereignty. Like England, Canada, Japan, etc.

Spain, France and Greece can go completely broke from owing money, for example, because they don't have monetary sovereignty.

Read The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. It will change your life.

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bmoredoc t1_iyab7fp wrote

Stephanie Kelton is a proponent of a theory called MMT that most economists think is false.

Most economists would agree with the commenter above you. Yes you can repay sovereign debt by printing money, but this has consequences for interest rates and debt that can negatively affect the economy and necessitate, for example, large tax increases.

In short, there's no free lunch.

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Concerned_Asuran t1_iye87v0 wrote

>Yes you can repay sovereign debt by printing money

No. You literally don't need to repay sovereign debt because you never borrowed any in the first place. We use "debt" simply because economists got lazy and didn't come up with a different word. But it is completely different from your household transactions.

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whatdowedo2022 t1_iyaa8q3 wrote

What? We borrow our currency from the fed, which is an external organization that doesn’t answer to the US unless it chooses to. They’re very similar to the national bank, which jackson eliminated in his term in office, which caused the nation to be thrown into a recession bc of the subsequent response by the national bank. What uh, what’re you talking about?

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Concerned_Asuran t1_iye7gga wrote

>We borrow our currency from the fed

The fed is the US Federal government though. Just cause it's a different building in Washington doesn't mean it's China.

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YoopedWhiskey t1_iy9z2vt wrote

That solves the payment, yes. To much of that will destroy your economy

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Jrapin t1_iya345z wrote

There would have to be many other factors for that to be true. Impossible no, liley certainly not.

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