What Happens When The US Debt Reaches Critical Levels?

[Matt Collins]

https://youtu.be/76S3iMfcZE8

[oyarde]

evrerybody please give your opinion of what is critical level. I think the last 500 percent increase in past 2 1/2 decades will prove to be what was critical. What is coming now and future will seem more and much faster but it wont be reversed because of what has already taken place.

[ClaytonB]

When it reaches critical levels, you bring in this guy...

[fisharmor]

evrerybody please give your opinion of what is critical level. I think the last 500 percent increase in past 2 1/2 decades will prove to be what was critical. What is coming now and future will seem more and much faster but it wont be reversed because of what has already taken place.

Well, my total debt load is about 240% of my gross earnings.
That's only because of my mortgage. I don't go into debt except in rare cases where I can get a new card or LOC that will increase my credit rating, and only to buy something that I already have the money for, but at 0% interest, and I pay it off before the interest kicks in.
The other point to be made is, there's literally no other way I could have gotten a house. I mean I could have spent the last 20 years scrimping and saving and then been able to move into a house now, but I wouldn't have had the equity, or been able to make the updates, etc, etc, all the reasons people have mortgages.

My point is this: debt is bad. Any debt. It's all bad.

Now I'm one who would argue exactly none the stuff this lady is talking about spending tax money on is even necessary or desirable, but for the sake of argument let's say some of it is. Let's pretend the US military isn't a gigantic pork project to create Moloch. If that's not what it is, then we ought to be able to get by on something far less expansive than what we have. A tiny, elite expeditionary force, plus an identically sized national guard to what we have now, plus some pinpoint-accurate hypersonic low-yield missiles, would amount to 10% or so of what we're currently spending.

And some forehead-slappingly obvious logic applied to each of those other categories would result in similar reductions in spending.

Going back to the home example: if your goal is to raise some kids and have a yard and check all the modern convenience checkboxes from 40 years ago, then 300% or less of your household gross income *should* be able to get you there. I won't get into the reasons that's not the case now - but I will say if you're even slightly above national average income and goal is to have a pool and a theater room and a 5 car garage, then odds are good you're going to be drowning in debt.

The goals are completely different. And the goals of our military are completely different from what we think they should be. Nobody stops and thinks "we have to be able to maintain a military capable of invading any two of the largest nations on Earth at the same time" and the people pushing for that level of funding are very careful never to phrase it that way. But that's what they want: global force projection capable of regime change at the drop of a hat, anywhere, for extended times. They want the pool and the theater room and 8000 square feet - and they are absolutely not willing to try to pay for it.

We've been doing this long enough that the conversation should not be "when is this going to become untenable". The conversation should center around this question: WHAT, exactly, are we driving full speed toward untenable in order to achieve?

It's not what they say it is. It never is what they say it is - what they tell us is just a bedtime story to get us to go along with it. They make videos with plastic cups and drop fifties into the cups because they think we all have the intellectual capacity of toddlers and can't understand the gravity of the situation - so what makes anyone think they'd bother thinking about those of us who can progress beyond the crisis assessment and figure out the root cause of WHY we're spending so much money?

The whole thing is a dog-and-pony-show. They're not giving us what they say they're giving us for that money. They know they're not giving it to us, and they know some of us know they aren't giving it to us. In that sense, NO amount of debt is going to snap anyone out of this. At this point, the pentagon openly admits they have no idea what they're using the money for. When we get to 5000% of GDP the TV will still be poo-pooing the idea that we need to review where the money is going.

There's no way this doesn't end badly. We'll be lucky if all they do is poo-poo the idea of cutting back spending. It's more likely everyone in this thread will be black-bagged and frog marched into a basement room with a hose and a giant floor drain in 10 years or so, just because we're participating in this discussion right now.

[Anti Globalist]

I think our debt is already at critical levels since we're currently at 32 trillion.