It's not that complicated. If you make $ 20k per year and have debt of $ 10k, you have a problem. If you make $ 100k a year and have debt of $ 10k, it is not a problem.
The other issue....foreign governments stop buying US debt ? Not a problem either. The US is not Bolivia.
Originally Posted by VitaMan
The problem is we're worse off than the 20k per year income / 10k debt example. We've got a GDP of $21 trillion and the debt owed by the federal government is $28 trillion. Now the Federal Reserve owns part of this debt, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. But I bet we're still pretty close to 100% of GDP net of the Fed's holdings.
I've read about a third of it is owned by foreigners. I worry about them jerking it. Bambino's pointed out that Russia is trying to de-dollarize. The Chinese may get piqued and get rid of their dollars. Or maybe people lose confidence and there's a run on the dollar, like what's happened to currencies in a number of developing countries (Argentina, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, to note some extreme examples in the last 50 years). It would appear that one way out of this mess would be massive inflation, especially if the U.S. government started issuing more long term debt. Again, LustyLad and CaptainMidnight, the resident experts, would probably take your side on this, so maybe I'm full of shit.
This will give you some perspective on our national debt,
https://www.thebalance.com/national-...events-3306287
And this will show you where we stack up against other countries. I believe the numbers, or at least the USA number, in the table is from 2019. US gross federal government debt has climbed a lot since then, from 106% of GDP to 133% of GDP.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...-national-debt
Please note that Singapore is a financial powerhouse, with lots of domestic savings and wealth, kind of like Japan, only its economy is still growing. And the basket cases in the Euro zone like Greece and Italy have sugardaddy Germany to bail them out.