MODS pls no ban; this is economic discussion only

Does debt matter? Seriously, why should we not be concerned about an 18 trillion dollar debt?

>PLEASE do not make this about welfare states or any other bullshit like this. keep it about fiscal policy

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I read a book about government debt once. Admittedly I'm dumb when it comes to this kind of shit but from what I can tell it's all a big convoluted mess of central banks, the imf, the world Bank, and private banks all lending money to each other and shifting it around and printing money whenever they need it.

So no...it doesn't really matter.

Not if most of your debt is denominated in your local currency and you have a modern economy.

The world economy is based on government debt.

Also generally politicians who complain about the debt are just pushing a certain policy agenda and don't actually reduce the debt when they're in power.

this

republishits chimpout about the debt whenever any kind of a new entitlement program is put on the table and then turn around and run on a massive expansion of military spending every fucking time.

Frankly we could use more economics threads on Veeky Forums instead of just 18 year olds bragging about their investment record

no one makes economics threads on Veeky Forums precisely because it's teenagers trying to find ways to get rich quick with cryptoshit and microcap stocks with their parent's scottade account

It does when economic growth is slow as fuck and interest rates start to rise, like right now

>"Should I blow my daddy's savings on cuckcoin?" threads
>"HOW DO I GET 5 MIL IN 3 MONTHS PLS HELP" threads
>"I'm 15 and I'm already retiring with 20 million from forex daytrading, you jelly?" threads
>only people actually discussing economics are headfucked lolbertarian doomsayers and goldbugs who get their knowledge exclusively from zerohedge and Peter Schitt

Veeky Forums is absolute trash, and economics is literally part of the humanities.

the government never has to 'pay off' its debt, it only has to keep meeting payments on individual debt instruments when they come due, which it can always be 100% certain to do when it controls its own currency.

18 trillion dollars though, the US debt is staggering

It only matters for poorer nation's.

>completely missing the point

>le kneepads maymay

>hurr durr I'm a fucking retard

Yes, debt prohibits growth

economicshelp.org/blog/7541/debt/does-government-debt-lead-to-lower-economic-growth/

Oh, but the 18 trillion dollar debt isn't worth serious concern. the deficit is an issue though

Eventually though the interest payments will catch up without growth. This won't be a huge problem for awhile but it soon still be

Yes, I'm completely missing the point. So debt is more that countries continually pump money into each other with no consequences at all if you can't return that money to the people you're borrowing it from? Are there some articles you'd recommend?

>Yes, debt prohibits growth

>economicshelp.org/blog/7541/debt/does-government-debt-lead-to-lower-economic-growth/

>Conclusion

>It is hard to make generalisations about the effect of debt on economic growth because so many factors affect growth. For example, in the 1920s, the UK had high debt to GDP ratio and low rates of economic growth. In the 1940s and 1950s, the UK had even higher levels of government debt, but economic growth was quite strong. Irish government debt was very high in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but this was not a constraint to the economic boom of the 1990s.

>There is no direct link between levels of debt and rates of economic growth

???

>expecting economicfags to even read their sources instead of just parroting the bottomline
There's a reason no one takes them as actually serious. You'd have better luck using a voodoo chickenmancer to gain insight into the macroeconomy than an economist.

is the US going to die or retire tomorrow?

Sooo.... How do you figure anything out

No, but it's a still growing country with a shrinking number of jobs and a growing debt. Somethings got to give. I can understand why it doesn't matter *now* but it will down the line

You don't. It's complex to the point that you can't understand it as a whole, but you can understand small aspects of it. It's why Austrians pull that "free hand of the market" shit so much. No one has any fucking clue. The "free hand of the market" is to the economy as "the Gods" were to complex problems that man did not have capability to understand thousands of years ago. Either way, the day someone figures out the macroeconomy is the day the economy ceases to be a competitive thing.

>down the line
and yet the US economy is as big as ever and is transitioning into a more high tech economy.

Yes, because debt has interest, and that interest has to be paid with taxes and inflation, taxes that could go to something more useful and lack of inflation that could prevent the currency from losing value.

But lots of people don't have the knowledge to work those jobs, or won't. And also