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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Uh... yes? That $76k is right about median household income, and a little under per capita GDP. Apply that logic to other sorts of finance: mortgage leverage is routinely five times that big, and no one freaks out about how you'll never be able to pay off your home.

Federal budget argumentation is just exhausting. Fight about balancing the budget, sure. Fight about unsustainable deficits, sure.

But to claim that very manageable federal debt payments can't be made is just ridiculous. Yes, the US government is going to pay off that debt. Which is why they were able to borrow it in the first place.

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>Yes, the US government is going to pay off that debt. Which is why they were able to borrow it in the first place.

There may come a time when the interest on the debt becomes so out of control that it cannot be serviced, likely in conjunction with people dumping bonds and leaving interest rates soaring. Meaning, America's credit goes up in flames. We're obviously not there yet and maybe it will never happen. That said, remember when Trump backed off extreme levels of the "Liberation Day" tariffs? Real fears of bond-dumping seem to have a lot to do with the more measured (relatively-speaking) approach to tariffs we're now seeing. If debt holders dump the 10-year bonds enough, it causes real issues for debt repayment.

> If debt holders dump the 10-year bonds enough, it causes real issues for debt repayment.

No, it doesn't, it impacts future borrowing. Third time, before my blood pressure spikes: that is an argument about future debt. It being true (or not) has zero relevance to the current size of the debt. You could be right (or wrong) if we had zero outstanding debt, or if it was $70T.

Ergo, it's either an incorrect or bad faith analysis of the situation. The current debt (whatever its size happens to be in the fiction being spun) will be paid off at the bills' rates and on the statutory schedules. Period.

Yeah, of course. But the argument is, at this future point, you must adjust policy to meet your obligations: either you can print more money, or you can cut services. But you must choose one or the other of those things.

The issue I think most people are correctly pointing out is that our current debt is unreasonable -- that it constrains our future policies way too much. Cutting services is effectively impossible in our politics, which leaves only inflation on the table. That's pretty much the same as default. That is where we're headed.

>The current debt (whatever its size happens to be in the fiction being spun) will be paid off at the bills' rates and on the statutory schedules. Period.

Your blood pressure issues notwithstanding, I don't think you believe that the US can possibly default or renege in any way on its debt, so there may not be a point in going on. History has run this experiment before and sovereign nations absolutely can default and/or renege on debt obligations. I certainly hope we don't see that in the case of the US. But I'm also not irrational enough to believe it's impossible.

While I agree with the sentiment, a mortgage is collateralised by the house, usually even the starting point is at most 90-95% of the house value (so the loan is in fact over collateralised) and if any repaying took place along the way, even more so. Sure, it's not idiot proof. But government debt is surely mostly uncolalteralised?

The government can always repay by printing currency, but that's not the same. This is sort of a default too, since inflation eats away the artificially repaid debt.

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