Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Nothing to worry about here.
Thanks Donald

Consumer debt is likely on a similar trajectory, as are corporate profits and executive compensation.

You’d think that humans (especially prosperous ones in NA and Western Europe) could live within their means (and tax bases). But we’ve all come to think we deserve all this shit we build and buy, all financed by debt.

Boggles the mind…

I wonder if that graph would be something close to a flat line if adjusted for inflation?

Hmm, probably not, 1 trillion in 1980 is 3.81 trillion in 2022

1980 debt was an historic low levels. 1945 at historic highs. Who do we owe that money to anyway?

My guess is we owe china, arabs and Russian oligarchs.
In reality; we owe whoever bought our bonds.
In 1945, that was probably middle class Americans who bought “ war bonds”.
I feel like the US is acting like someone with a high limit credit card, or a loan shark victim. The more we borrow, the more of our income is spent paying interest; not even paying the principle; in a downward spiral.
There was a time, not too long ago, when congress passed a law that required reduction in ALL expenditures if the budget did not balance. That took the politics and pork and favorite programs out of the equation if compromise was not reached. That was a better solution than reneging on our obligations; declaring bankruptcy is not an option.

“Two-thirds of US public debt is owned by US citizens, banks, corporations, and the Federal Reserve Bank;[17] approximately one-third of US public debt is held by foreign countries – particularly China and Japan. In comparison, less than 5% of Italian and Japanese public debt is held by foreign countries.”

“ According to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database (April 2021),[16] the level of Gross Government debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada was 116.3%, in China 66.8%, in India 89.6%, in Germany 70.3%, in France 115.2% and in the United States 132.8%.”

Some of this may not have been worrying when interest rates and cost of borrowing was low. As interest rates rise, the debt servicing costs will be like a vampire on government expenditures. This will reduce the manoeuvre room for major capital projects, which will be drawn from a smaller remaining revenue pot.

The triple whammy may be if countries again face stagflation, where economic growth slides backward, inflation rises, and interest rates rise as a control measure.

It has happened before.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/opin ... -debt.html