If we shrank US debt by a $1 per a second

[JerrySpringer]

If the fed could reverse engines and start chipping away the national debt by a dollar a second, it would still take over 31,000 years to take it down a trillion dollars. So, if they could reverse engines and cut the debt by a $1000 per a second, it would take 31 years to chip away a trillion dollars. This is if we could cut spending and still service debt interest at the same time. What are the chances that enough payments or cuts will get done to even make principal payments go down? I mean, if Washington has some plan to contain the debt, what does it look like? Are they hoping that the economy can grow enough to produce tax revenue to pay off things? The longer the debt accrues, the more and more it looks like we are never going to pay down the debt and one day something has to give, either a black swan or painful tax levying.

[68Camaro]

The sovereign is king so they make and interpret the rules, so no confidence they won't find a way to steal the money and/or do the ever popular "strategic default"... so the corollary to this is to protect yourself don't keep any funds in any government bonds. (That's presuming you are willing to keep any money in any market - a separate topic.)

[Kurr]

Every dollar, and credit in circulatioon was borrowed at interest from the fed.

To wipe out the "national debt" you would also have to "wipe out" the money supply and still have interest to deal with.

Mathematically impossible to pay it off.

[JerrySpringer]

Every dollar, and credit in circulatioon was borrowed at interest from the fed.

To wipe out the "national debt" you would also have to "wipe out" the money supply and still have interest to deal with.

Mathematically impossible to pay it off.

It just gets rolled over. The analogy of turning a Queen Mary around in a short span of space comes to mind. Like I said, even if they freeze the principal cost and chip away at it by taxes and cuts at a clip of a $1000 per a second, it still takes over 30 years to pay off a trillion dollars. By my calculations, they would have to lay off a half-million government workers to shore up the cuts in the worst case for that. Or make program cuts vis a vis. Not going to happen like that I bet. If anything, I see them going after more and more revenue sources.

[JerrySpringer]

The sovereign is king so they make and interpret the rules, so no confidence they won't find a way to steal the money and/or do the ever popular "strategic default"... so the corollary to this is to protect yourself don't keep any funds in any government bonds. (That's presuming you are willing to keep any money in any market - a separate topic.)

We get a mixed message from the economy nowadays. I guess that is part of a free country. One side says things are getting better. The other side thinks things will have to hit a bottom. Some say welcome to the new normal. I ain't whining. In fact, human nature dictates I question WTF is going on. Just like anyone, I want some security on some level. Now, if you ask anyone if they think we live in a time different from the age of lords and kings and vassals and serfs and trolls under bridges, they'd say, what are you nuts, of course, we have all these gadgets and choices and rights. I don't think the system will ever Darwin-out those that want to be head rat.