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The U.S. national debt reached $20 trillion for the first time ever last Friday after President Trump signed a bipartisan bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months.
While at Camp David, Mr. Trump, with the stroke of his presidential pen, increased the statutory debt last Friday by approximately $318 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Before the bill's completion, the U.S. debt was sitting around $19.84 trillion.
The legislation allowed the Treasury Department to start borrowing again immediately after several months of using "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default. The bill passed last Thursday 80-17 in the Senate and in the House 316-90 on Friday. Around $15 billion in emergency funding for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts was attached to the borrowing measure.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-hits-historic-20-trillion-mark/
[That works out to just shy of $62,000 per American. --Ed.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @12:34PM (12 children)
Seriously, who expects the US government to ever deliver on this?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @02:39PM (10 children)
Like all debt...
No-one.
But the interest payments into perpetuity will mean even if they don't pay it off, the people who gave it will profit and have an enormous hold over the terms of repayment.
Literally, Britain paid back DOUBLE the war-debt to America for WW2, and didn't pay it off until nearly 2007.
The longer you draw it out, and the more you can stretch the term and keep the payments going, the more "constant, reliable, small payments" you can rely on in your balance sheets.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ilsa on Friday September 15 2017, @04:00PM (5 children)
Up until you can't make those payments.
How long until the US needs to ask Greece for financial advice?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @04:49PM (4 children)
The US has its debtors by the balls too. If the US defaults, their economies crash.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday September 15 2017, @04:56PM (2 children)
So what you're saying is that the world doesn't even need nukes anymore? Sounds like the whole world already one step away from a cataclysmic collapse without having to fire a single shot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @05:10PM
Nah, you need nukes when the money-shuffling stops working and you need some other way to bully the world into submission.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:48AM
Financial crash of 2008 says hi... and that next time it's going to be bigger.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:22PM
A principle President Trump did business by, but goes back to at least the 1940's: When you owe the bank $100,000 and have trouble paying it back, you have a problem. When you owe the bank $100 million and have trouble paying it back, the bank has a problem.
That said, right now there are a lot of people in the US government who would love to default on the largest creditor of the United States: The Social Security Administration. It's possible to look at that as money the US government owes itself, but another way of looking at is is that this loan shifted the tax burden from the progressive income tax to the regressive payroll tax so that rich Americans don't have to pay as high a percentage of their income in taxes as everybody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)
Our debt holders have very little to say about the terms of repayment. I don't understand how there are so many financially illiterate fucks with opinions.
Want to tell me where and how "things" like you get ideas?
--Creimer
__________________________________
Why buy an iPhone X for $1000 when softbank will sell you a 4g capable onahole for 3000 yen a month?
Don't forget to download my 7000 line hosts file!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
I think you'll find they agreed them when you took out the loan.
And they have to agree to any deferrals (UK made several for the WW2 debt).
And they have to agree to the terms of those deferrals.
And they have recourse when you don't pay (which still happens even for large countries), and can choose the terms of any future loans based on your previous (you think this is just one loan, or that any country you owe only has one loan with you? No, they allow consolidation and get re-vamped every few years as new loans are folded in, paid off or disputed).
And they get to use them as a bargaining chip (interest killing you? Okay, how about you reduce the interest on our neighbouring country's loan, or provide us a good arms deal, etc.)
They have a fucking lot to say about terms of repayment or they wouldn't grant you the loan, and if you don't follow their terms the NEXT terms are worded even more in their favour.
Rather than think that I automatically meant "Oh, they can charge you twice this month because they feel like it", try reading.
You don't take out a loan and then say "Fuck it, I'm not paying this this year" without consequence. We have entire government departments to discuss and negotiate these deals and try to agree on terms, and it's affected by everything from "what the minister said about our country in the news" to "who we're currently at war with". Sure, on paper, it's 2%. Now ask for a deferral and see how friendly those debtors are. Then try - for instance - to reduce the debts using the emergency measures referenced above, to avoid default, without having to sit in a room and discuss repayments - and all kinds of politics - with your lending countries.
"Why Mr Brexit! Hello, you want to discuss your loans to Germany. Okay? No, I have it written down that you pay every year on time or penalties occur. What's that? Oh, you can't afford it this year. Shame. Why, if only there was some OTHER way in which we could benefit which would allow us to let you defer that kind of payment for that length outside the terms initially agreed... gosh..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:36PM (1 child)
US Govt: We're running a bit short this month, can you help a brother out?
FED: Sure, just let me open the spreadsheet. OK here's a Trillion dollars, will that do?
US Govt: Cheers thanks.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:58PM
"Hmmm.. strange... the value of the dollar plummeted internationally when we did that, and our debt is counted in Euros anyway, so we still need to find the money and we just screwed ourselves over while also making it really easy for all the people who owe US money to pay us a virtual pittance and clear their debt to us forever...."
Never become an economist, mate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:53PM
Me, I do. They expect me to pay personal debt - I expect them to pay ours as a nation. Stop spending, pay it down, and don't get in this shape again.