Western world's national debts... what's the end game?
Discussion
I’ve wondered this. Basically money will come to mean nothing as the debt will be owned by the few and countries will devalue it away, which will long term exacerbate the problem.
I comment from a position of no real understanding but it seems to me to be common sense that perpetually getting deeper in debt - be that personal or national debt- will never end well. I take the view that collectively in the west we have lived beyond our means for decades but there is no political or public will to reign it in because that would be an acceptance that we’ve been living a lie for so long. I don’t believe we’ll grow our way out of it, ever. I believe that the only way of creating genuine new wealth is ownership or control of the primary industries - digging up stuff or growing stuff is real. Much of the ‘wealth’ we’ve created it just transactional or financial engineering. I.e. we can argue to ourselves we are creating wealth selling coffee to each other but the only real source is growing the beans or milking the cows. The rest is just pretend,
I comment from a position of no real understanding but it seems to me to be common sense that perpetually getting deeper in debt - be that personal or national debt- will never end well. I take the view that collectively in the west we have lived beyond our means for decades but there is no political or public will to reign it in because that would be an acceptance that we’ve been living a lie for so long. I don’t believe we’ll grow our way out of it, ever. I believe that the only way of creating genuine new wealth is ownership or control of the primary industries - digging up stuff or growing stuff is real. Much of the ‘wealth’ we’ve created it just transactional or financial engineering. I.e. we can argue to ourselves we are creating wealth selling coffee to each other but the only real source is growing the beans or milking the cows. The rest is just pretend,
.:ian:. said:
If you owe the bank $4000 its your problem, if you owe them $40T it's their problem 
This is a curiously perceptive comment, and bang on target.A few months back Donald Trump said, "The US might not have as much debt as you think we've got". He's not dared to say it again.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-m...
bigglesA110 said:
…the only real source is growing the beans or milking the cows. The rest is just pretend,
Well, yes.But we’ve created an entire planetary system where those actually doing those critical functions now earn minute amounts of money, but everyone selling and profiting from those systems makes such an absolute fortune out of the job that we have to print money to keep the whole ridiculous scheme going.
I actually think that what we’ve learnt over the last 50 or 60 years is that we absolutely CAN keep this absurd Ponzi scheme going. So $40 trillion of US debt will be laughed at in 5 years time. We’ve basically learnt the pitfalls and are getting better and better at it.
Getragdogleg said:
Its much like life itself, we are all going to die yet we live our lives trying to ignore it as much as possible.
It is literally someone else's problem if you kick the can down the road long enough.
Totes.It is literally someone else's problem if you kick the can down the road long enough.
And the whole world has now engaged in kicking the can out of the atmosphere.
Elon will catch it on the moon and hoof it on to Uranus.
Panamax said:
.:ian:. said:
If you owe the bank $4000 its your problem, if you owe them $40T it's their problem
This is a curiously perceptive comment, and bang on target.A few months back Donald Trump said, "The US might not have as much debt as you think we've got". He's not dared to say it again.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-m...
So recounting rather than perceptive.
Apols Panamax obvs, you didn’t claim to have come up with it.
Depends upon how far into the future you are looking but I see the demise of Capitalism be for the end of the Century. Robots and Ai will dominate everything. Money will have little meaning and the concept of a job will see old fashioned. Democracy will also be replaced with World Government of one description or another and mankind will organise itself in a way more beneficial to sustaining life on this planet which will largely be not digging things up and burning it or increasing Net Entropy of the Planet.
Capitalism will die because the wealthy that own everything won’t be able to sell anything to those of us with no jobs. Government will take it all over. Debt will die with Capitalism.
If you think about it most people do non jobs. We just sell things to other people in one form or another…why?
Take electric cars…they are horrible for the environment. The best car is an old car, but that doesn’t sustain the economy because we have to be producing new things and growing. We are absolutely conditioned to think this way. But it’s not beyond being challenged or changed when Ai rips up the rule book which it absolutely will do….
Capitalism will die because the wealthy that own everything won’t be able to sell anything to those of us with no jobs. Government will take it all over. Debt will die with Capitalism.
If you think about it most people do non jobs. We just sell things to other people in one form or another…why?
Take electric cars…they are horrible for the environment. The best car is an old car, but that doesn’t sustain the economy because we have to be producing new things and growing. We are absolutely conditioned to think this way. But it’s not beyond being challenged or changed when Ai rips up the rule book which it absolutely will do….
HenryV1415 said:
Depends upon how far into the future you are looking but I see the demise of Capitalism be for the end of the Century. Robots and Ai will dominate everything. Money will have little meaning and the concept of a job will see old fashioned. Democracy will also be replaced with World Government of one description or another and mankind will organise itself in a way more beneficial to sustaining life on this planet which will largely be not digging things up and burning it or increasing Net Entropy of the Planet.
Capitalism will die because the wealthy that own everything won t be able to sell anything to those of us with no jobs. Government will take it all over. Debt will die with Capitalism.
If you think about it most people do non jobs. We just sell things to other people in one form or another why?
Take electric cars they are horrible for the environment. The best car is an old car, but that doesn t sustain the economy because we have to be producing new things and growing. We are absolutely conditioned to think this way. But it s not beyond being challenged or changed when Ai rips up the rule book which it absolutely will do .
Great, we'll be in servitude to the robots and AI and whoever controls them, that is unless we've managed to loose control of those to and Governments are in servitude to the technology too. I like your optimism we'll all become guardians of the planet. I think we'll be scratching in the dirt and fighting each other like rats. Unemployed and poor rats just trying to get by on whatever crumbs the tiny number of global elite decide to throw out to us. Capitalism will die because the wealthy that own everything won t be able to sell anything to those of us with no jobs. Government will take it all over. Debt will die with Capitalism.
If you think about it most people do non jobs. We just sell things to other people in one form or another why?
Take electric cars they are horrible for the environment. The best car is an old car, but that doesn t sustain the economy because we have to be producing new things and growing. We are absolutely conditioned to think this way. But it s not beyond being challenged or changed when Ai rips up the rule book which it absolutely will do .
A decade ago I would have called this fantasy. The scary thing is today I'm looking around at where we are heading and how fast and it seems entirely feasible. This is from a very western perspective I guess. Where capitalism doesn't exist, maybe they had the right idea in the first place as we seem to be heading there anyway.
Panamax said:
.:ian:. said:
If you owe the bank $4000 its your problem, if you owe them $40T it's their problem
This is a curiously perceptive comment, and bang on target.A few months back Donald Trump said, "The US might not have as much debt as you think we've got". He's not dared to say it again.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-m...
I genuinely think at this stage that they are hoping AGI will save the day. 10 year time line.
In the short term - 2/3 years I think Japan and the UK will hold the keys. We / they hold the most US debt.
So for now the US just needs to hope we don't sell. They already helped out Japan with an IoU.
The US govt has in the last few days said they will use their emergency money deposits to prop up the bonds market. ($950Bn on hand)
So I think they know whats coming. Its when not if.
Once we have that re-set we go into low rates again. I think we will see a fast recovery.
Warsh is clearly doing things different to JP. I dont trust him one bit.
I would also watch what the US does with crypto. I could see some shenanigans there if they do move towards a digital system.
In the short term - 2/3 years I think Japan and the UK will hold the keys. We / they hold the most US debt.
So for now the US just needs to hope we don't sell. They already helped out Japan with an IoU.
The US govt has in the last few days said they will use their emergency money deposits to prop up the bonds market. ($950Bn on hand)
So I think they know whats coming. Its when not if.
Once we have that re-set we go into low rates again. I think we will see a fast recovery.
Warsh is clearly doing things different to JP. I dont trust him one bit.
I would also watch what the US does with crypto. I could see some shenanigans there if they do move towards a digital system.
Andy86GT said:
In the UK we have to borrow more money to pay the existing debt. This cannot be sustainable.
Yet many seem to think we shouldn't have cut in 2010 when we were adding to the debt even faster than we are now, and many on the government backbenches and even in cabinet think we should continue pouring petrol onto the fire.
I think it is deliberate, to get us all in debt, paying interest earning more money for banks, tax is everywhere, on anything, insurance is everywhere preventing growth, expansion, planning is everywhere preventing ideas, sparks of genius.
It is all about a tiny amount of people owning everything, and getting you all in debt to earn them even more.
It all feels a bit Matrixy to me
It is all about a tiny amount of people owning everything, and getting you all in debt to earn them even more.
It all feels a bit Matrixy to me
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff