Take my upvote haha :p. Yep, in a nation of 300 million, the possibilities are pretty much beyond any one person's imagination, for sure. Hopefully everything turns out for the best.
You guys have been an interesting read. I'm learning, lol. Since China is obviously at war with us, and relations are tense, and a lot of that debt is to China, what are the consequences of defaulting on China? Seems like, to me, it would almost clear the trade deficit the US has with them. What are they going to do? Send a virus here in retaliation? Honestly, though, I am learning about this stuff and I really don't know the consequences of something like that. Otherwise, I feel like - right now - China is begging for it.
-Well, probably most people (myself included) don't know. It looks like China holds 1.1 trillion in US debt, and there's approximately a 350 billion annual trade deficit with them (according to census.gov).
-So, defaulting on China would "solve 'that' problem for 4 years", it would still leave anywhere from 21-25 trillion in national debt, depending on who you believe. Also -- more importantly -- it doesn't even talk about the unfunded liabilities, which, depending on who you ask, is anywhere from 50 trillion (..2x the nat debt), or 200 trillion. Those are primarily unfunded/underfunded Social Security/Medicare promises over 75 years (~4 generations).
-So, defaulting on China does very little to solve this 50+ year snowball. It'd certainly wreak havoc on our credit rating, influencing the rate countries lend to us. I had to do some googling, looks like in 2019 our debt was 22 trillion, paid 393 trillion in interest.
-If our interest rate increased only 1%, then we pay an additional 220 billion interest on our balance. That kinda takes away a lot of the benefit of no longer having a trade deficit with China.
-I guess there's a lot more that needs to be covered than I can really write out in a comment haha. Ultimately, there isn't a single silver bullet to the US debt. I suppose one of the major takeaways is that Social Security is going to have to be reformed (I can only pray, abolished or fully privatized), which Trump is actually moving on (SS/Medicare are paid for by payroll taxes), so who knows. Hopefully good things!
-Just an obligatory footnote: Yeah, I definitely agree China isn't our friend, and there's a lot of things that could/should be done, it's just that trying to push defaulting on China as a major overhaul of our debt doesn't look to be a winning argument, just touching US credit/the interest time-bomb alone is pretty nasty.
Take my upvote haha :p. Yep, in a nation of 300 million, the possibilities are pretty much beyond any one person's imagination, for sure. Hopefully everything turns out for the best.
You guys have been an interesting read. I'm learning, lol. Since China is obviously at war with us, and relations are tense, and a lot of that debt is to China, what are the consequences of defaulting on China? Seems like, to me, it would almost clear the trade deficit the US has with them. What are they going to do? Send a virus here in retaliation? Honestly, though, I am learning about this stuff and I really don't know the consequences of something like that. Otherwise, I feel like - right now - China is begging for it.
-Well, probably most people (myself included) don't know. It looks like China holds 1.1 trillion in US debt, and there's approximately a 350 billion annual trade deficit with them (according to census.gov).
-So, defaulting on China would "solve 'that' problem for 4 years", it would still leave anywhere from 21-25 trillion in national debt, depending on who you believe. Also -- more importantly -- it doesn't even talk about the unfunded liabilities, which, depending on who you ask, is anywhere from 50 trillion (..2x the nat debt), or 200 trillion. Those are primarily unfunded/underfunded Social Security/Medicare promises over 75 years (~4 generations).
-So, defaulting on China does very little to solve this 50+ year snowball. It'd certainly wreak havoc on our credit rating, influencing the rate countries lend to us. I had to do some googling, looks like in 2019 our debt was 22 trillion, paid 393 trillion in interest.
-If our interest rate increased only 1%, then we pay an additional 220 billion interest on our balance. That kinda takes away a lot of the benefit of no longer having a trade deficit with China.
-I guess there's a lot more that needs to be covered than I can really write out in a comment haha. Ultimately, there isn't a single silver bullet to the US debt. I suppose one of the major takeaways is that Social Security is going to have to be reformed (I can only pray, abolished or fully privatized), which Trump is actually moving on (SS/Medicare are paid for by payroll taxes), so who knows. Hopefully good things!
-Just an obligatory footnote: Yeah, I definitely agree China isn't our friend, and there's a lot of things that could/should be done, it's just that trying to push defaulting on China as a major overhaul of our debt doesn't look to be a winning argument, just touching US credit/the interest time-bomb alone is pretty nasty.
Fair, these are things I should probably dig into further.