The national debt surpassed a record $39 trillion on Wednesday, a milestone that comes just weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
The unprecedented figure highlights competing administration priorities, from passing a massive tax law and boosting defense spending and immigration enforcement to chipping away at the debt itself — the latter of which Donald Trump promised to do as both a candidate and as president.
Because so far the fed has remained independent, and national debt matters far less than most people think it does. Take a look at Japan - theoretically in debt WAY over their head, but the Bank of Japan is actually trillions of yen in the black and mostly invested in the Japanese economy, getting yields of 6-7% on their holdings far above their debt service. Their pension fund is a majority stakeholder in basically all internal infrastructure, and despite stagnant “growth”, Japan’s real wage growth is like 4-5% YOY.
As with anything economics, a single metric usually tells a bad story. Whether we like it or not, the US economy is pretty robust and even a moron like Trump can’t really kill it totally in 4 years without messing with the currency directly. The downfall will be long and drawn out.
Isn’t the whole fact Japan’s basically had a 0% interest rate been a massive bandaid on the global economy and with them actually removing that quickly fucking everything.
Uh, vaguely, yes. They’re essentially pinned to 0% because they need to get their inflation up, but that’s not really caused by their national debt. They’re definitely not in an enviable position overall, but their 260%+ debt:gdp ratio isn’t really why.