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Comment by charlesju | Hacker News Reader

Just do the math.

$10 trillion (national debt)/300 M (US Population) = $33,703.56

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

As long as the US has the power to raise more taxes it can take on more debt with the insurance that in case of emergency it can hit the switch and raise taxes to take $33,334 from each of us to wipe off the debt (over like 10 years, $3,000 each year). That would totally "suck", but we're not "bankrupt" if these options exist.

Now, I obviously am not supporting the government's irresponsible deficit spending, I'm just merely pointing out that the media is blowing all this out of proportion.

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The author was referring to total household debt (including mortgages, credit cards, and car loans), not just the Federal debt. That total is significantly more than $10T.

Granted, he's still wrong, because he doesn't take into account who the debt is owed to. If you have a $200k mortgage, that $200k is your debt but some bank's asset - most of which are U.S. corporations. It all cancels out, and what you're left with is the U.S. debt held by foreign citizens, governments, and corporations. Which is worrisome, but historically, when major military powers have owed large sums to foreign creditors, they just declare war on the foreign powers and then declare that all debts owned by enemy combatants are null and void.

Perhaps, but who would the US borrow money from later if they did that?

If war breaks out, who you're going to borrow money from is the least of your problems. ;-)

actually no. If the US outright repudiates debt in war, the value of the dollar would take a plunge and solders, even the patriotic ones, like to get paid for risking their lives. Furthermore, weapons and supplies are extremely expensive.

When war breaks out, money is one of the biggest problems. The praetorian guard in the roman empire once killed a praetor, put his head on a pike, and paraded him/it around Rome because he refused to bribe them.

Not if we go to war to plunder :)

That's an interesting question, what would looting in modern society look like? Can you "confiscate" securities? Companies?

oil. That's not some silly slap at the Iraq war which wasn't over oil IMO. But conquering for oil has already happened, japan in WWII and Iraq over Kuwait in thefirst gulf war just to name two.

Heck, the government is buying huge stakes in banks at historically low prices right now. Whether they're being "confiscated" or "rescued" is just a matter of your viewpoint.

You can also look at Russia for examples - the Russian government basically confiscated Yukos.

From those who didn't want to be invaded or bombed I suppose.

In practice, we don't need to outright repudiate the debt, we can just expand the money supply (i.e. "print more dollars"). This causes inflation but is not as bad as just breaking our promises.

Actually our debt amounts to $53t (including future obligations).

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/07/americas-53-trillion-d...

"the media is blowing all this out of proportion."

When is it not doing that?

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