US National Debt Thread

It's been a while since I posted here. We're at $37.16 trillion now. The debt always goes up more slowly during the first of the year, because a lot of tax revenue comes in before April 15. I expect to see $38 and $39 trillion come fairly quickly. I predict $40 trillion before the mid-term elections, which are in 15 months.

There was a lot of talk about DOGE slashing federal spending during the first month or two of Trump's new term, but that's all forgotten now.
 
Thomas More said:
It's been a while since I posted here. We're at $37.16 trillion now. The debt always goes up more slowly during the first of the year, because a lot of tax revenue comes in before April 15. I expect to see $38 and $39 trillion come fairly quickly. I predict $40 trillion before the mid-term elections, which are in 15 months.

There was a lot of talk about DOGE slashing federal spending during the first month or two of Trump's new term, but that's all forgotten now.
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Every single administration that comes along will simply kick the can down the road until the whole thing blows up in spectacular fashion.

The economy is held together with twigs and chewing gum, any serious attempt at addressing this problem will cause such a disruption that no president will want to be blamed for causing it.
 
The United States has bought up some bitcoin as part of their strategic bitcoin reserve but not nearly enough, they would have to buy a lot more and then have the price of one bitcoin jump to five to $10 million per bitcoin over the next 20 years, if we could eventually pay down the national debt

The US Government owns 198,012 Bitcoins as of Dec. 15, 2024
 
eradicator said:
The United States has bought up some bitcoin as part of their strategic bitcoin reserve but not nearly enough, they would have to buy a lot more and then have the price of one bitcoin jump to five to $10 million per bitcoin over the next 20 years, if we could eventually pay down the national debt

The US Government owns 198,012 Bitcoins as of Dec. 15, 2024
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If the US government got to 1 million Bitcoin and in 30 years time the Bitcoin price goes to $100 million dollars per coin due to hyperinflation or moving to a Bitcoin global standard then 1 million Bitcoin would be $100 trillion dollars. Of course with the current $2 trillion dollar annual deficits the debt would also be $100 trillion in 30 years time (being optimistic and assuming deficits do not increase from the current $2 trillion. So under this highly optimistic scenario 1 million Bitcoin could pay off the nantional debt in 30 years time.
 
Australia Sucks said:
If the US government got to 1 million Bitcoin and in 30 years time the Bitcoin price goes to $100 million dollars per coin due to hyperinflation or moving to a Bitcoin global standard then 1 million Bitcoin would be $100 trillion dollars. Of course with the current $2 trillion dollar annual deficits the debt would also be $100 trillion in 30 years time (being optimistic and assuming deficits do not increase from the current $2 trillion. So under this highly optimistic scenario 1 million Bitcoin could pay off the nantional debt in 30 years time.
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Why on earth would we stop at 1 million bitcoin?
 
Australia Sucks said:
The U.S. government buying a lot of Bitcoin could push the price into the stratosphere due to game theory thereby making it less worthwhile to buy more than that.
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It probably won't happen that way. The losses must be realized, by someone - it will probably be sovereign bond holders, and currency holders.

As bond prices fall and yields spike, banks will start to fail - until governments print even more money to shore up the banking system, transferring the losses to people holding fiat.

There is no magic way out, even with bitcoin. The losses must be realized - trillions in wealth will slowly, or quickly disappear.
 
The Genius Act: has little to do with “stablecoins” since they have almost zero utility in the USA.

It is about putting $3.5T in non-circulating bank reserves into the economy to increase inflation (and they hope, economic growth). The goal is much higher asset prices, higher inflation, and negative real bond yields (nominal yield - inflation rate). Stimulus to try and grow the economy out of the debt trap. Of course, “nothing stops this train” unless we get AI Optimus bots and cold fusion in the next few years.

 
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I've often thought one of the strategies that would have to be used when the US debt gets out of control is to inflate it away. To some extent, that has already happened. The US debt has doubled since 2018 or so, but then the cost of living has more or less doubled in that time as well.

The official rate of inflation hasn't gone up 100% since 2018, but the practical cost of living sure does seem to be twice as high. Many people think the official rate of inflation is lower than reality, which I agree with. If so, then the debt really is getting inflated away.

However, even with the way that inflation shrinks the value of the debt, they are borrowing so fast that it still keeps growing as a percentage of GDP. I think there's a good chance that inflation will stay high over the coming years, as they are doing this on purpose.
 
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