Boss
Take a Memo:
That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard for excusing our massive deficits. I suppose if we continue to devalue our currency we can eventually render our debt worthless? What a fucking moron.I'm not trying to trap you I'm just asking to see what you understand. The US is a sovergn country in control of their own currency, it's economy very different than that of a private citizen or business racking up a credit card bill.Yes, it pretty much works the same way as your credit card. It's far more complex and there are some nuanced differences, but it's fundamentally the same.So you think our debt is like a credit card bill that we are paying interest on right? I understand how it works but you apparently do not. Try one more time to answer a simple question. You say our interest payments are mostly going to the Chinese. I'm asking how much of it is going to the Chinese and where is the other percentage going?I'm sorry you don't understand how interest on debt works. It's money paid for money you borrow. We're having to borrow a trillion dollars a year to keep the lights on. Each year, that's another trillion dollars we will have to pay interest on in addition to what we're already paying. At some point we can no longer pay the interest. This isn't a theory or scare tactic, it just happened to Greece a few years ago.How much? Where does the rest go?Mostly to Chinese and Japanese banks holding our debt.
I don't know the actual percentage of debt the Chinese hold, it's a chunk. I don't understand your questions here... the part not held by China is held by other countries. Are you trying to make a point? Spit it out! Stop trying to act like a sleazy trial lawyer trying to trick me into some incriminating answer. Interest on debt is just that... it's not something else. We get nothing for it other than use of the money we borrowed.
Foreign countries own about a third of our debt, not the majority, the rest is held by domestic governments, the federal reserve, and domestic private investors. So when your 401k buys treasury bonds, which most do because they are a stable low risk investment, you own a piece of the debt. This means part of servicing the debt is paying for our citizens retirements and funding our state governments and banks.
You didn't read the link I posted did you? Do yourself a favor and give it a look. It does a great job breaking down what the debt is and how we borrow.
Start with this one to understand the debt:
Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go
Then this one to break down how we borrow and who we owe:
Borrowing and the Federal Debt
In any event, the next time I hear some lefty chastising Trump for the cost of his weekends at Mar-a-Lago, I shall call on you to explain how much he is helping bolster retirement accounts!