Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, called on lawmakers to “ultimately fix the broken process that got us into this mess.”
The United States government raises money by issuing bonds. It’s a “bond” as in “a promise.” It is literally a promise that if you buy one for a dollar, they will buy it back from you for a dollar and five cents next year. Not the highest interest you can get, but it’s always been rock solid reliable, unlike the stock market which earns more over time but also crashes periodically.
These bonds are just one more investment type that you can buy on the market, like stocks or mutual funds. So anyone can own them. Your grandma can own some. Jeff Bezos can own some. The government of China can own a lottttt of them.
The national debt is the five cents we have to pay every year on top of the dollar we borrowed last year. If we didn’t use that dollar to earn more than 5 cents of economic growth during that time, it was a losing bet for the US to make. We’ve made a lot of those losing bets. And now we have so many 5 cents coming due, and not enough new incoming tax revenue from our general economy to easily pay them.
Borrowing money makes sense if you can use it to grow. We are still paying off the massive borrowing we did for World War 2, but the thing is our economy has also grown massively since then so that debt is like nothing to us. WW2 put the US into a position of world dominance that has been hugely beneficial for us monetarily. So that debt was a good bet.
But we’ve been borrowing more and more and growing less and less. Now we’re borrowing to pay off the borrowing we did before, and that’s a rapid spiral down the drain.
So in the end, the national debt isn’t scary if you think America can keep growing rapidly. It’s built in that growth mentality that we’ll just keep getting bigger and bigger and have more and more to work with. That’s held true for 75 years, but it really can’t hold true forever. It’s the same dumbass growth mentality that fuels the rest of capitalism.
The reason grandparents always think the debt is scary is that they are past their own growth phase of life and spend their time trying to figure out how to live long term on what they’ve got now and nothing more. This is old people’s daily reality. And then they look at the government behaving like a teenager saying no no I can borrow like crazy to go to college because when I get out of college I’m going to earn so much money I won’t even feel it when I pay it back.
You get that college —> big earnings leap once in a lifetime (if you’re lucky) and we’ve been trying to live that leap continuously as if it’s going to just go on and on for centuries.
so you have the consumer rate which is what we can get t-bills at (which is what you linked), but the fed also loans to major banks at the prime rate and those loans are huge. like, billions dollar loans. those loans are at the prime rate and it’s what i had in mind, but the treasury yield rate is what you or i can get on t-bills. i think the major fed to bank loans use t-bills (i haven’t read up on this stuff in 20 years) instead of moneys, but i don’t remember. what rate the majority of the debt is at, i haven’t looked in a while.
This is the most eloquent way I’ve ever heard this expressed. I feel I have a much much deeper understanding of Americas debt crisis after reading this comment. Do you work in finance? Did you use ai to write any of this?
No I don’t work in finance. I consider myself pretty low on financial literacy to be honest. But that may help with writing explainers. I find that advanced people very often make poor explainers because they don’t realize when they are using jargon or high level concepts that their audience doesn’t have the foundation to understand.
The United States government raises money by issuing bonds. It’s a “bond” as in “a promise.” It is literally a promise that if you buy one for a dollar, they will buy it back from you for a dollar and five cents next year. Not the highest interest you can get, but it’s always been rock solid reliable, unlike the stock market which earns more over time but also crashes periodically.
These bonds are just one more investment type that you can buy on the market, like stocks or mutual funds. So anyone can own them. Your grandma can own some. Jeff Bezos can own some. The government of China can own a lottttt of them.
The national debt is the five cents we have to pay every year on top of the dollar we borrowed last year. If we didn’t use that dollar to earn more than 5 cents of economic growth during that time, it was a losing bet for the US to make. We’ve made a lot of those losing bets. And now we have so many 5 cents coming due, and not enough new incoming tax revenue from our general economy to easily pay them.
Borrowing money makes sense if you can use it to grow. We are still paying off the massive borrowing we did for World War 2, but the thing is our economy has also grown massively since then so that debt is like nothing to us. WW2 put the US into a position of world dominance that has been hugely beneficial for us monetarily. So that debt was a good bet.
But we’ve been borrowing more and more and growing less and less. Now we’re borrowing to pay off the borrowing we did before, and that’s a rapid spiral down the drain.
So in the end, the national debt isn’t scary if you think America can keep growing rapidly. It’s built in that growth mentality that we’ll just keep getting bigger and bigger and have more and more to work with. That’s held true for 75 years, but it really can’t hold true forever. It’s the same dumbass growth mentality that fuels the rest of capitalism.
The reason grandparents always think the debt is scary is that they are past their own growth phase of life and spend their time trying to figure out how to live long term on what they’ve got now and nothing more. This is old people’s daily reality. And then they look at the government behaving like a teenager saying no no I can borrow like crazy to go to college because when I get out of college I’m going to earn so much money I won’t even feel it when I pay it back.
You get that college —> big earnings leap once in a lifetime (if you’re lucky) and we’ve been trying to live that leap continuously as if it’s going to just go on and on for centuries.
What’s the interest rate of the money the US government is burrowing right now?
let me skip a few steps in your questions
Wouldn’t the treasury yield rate be the more precise answer to their question than the federal prime lending rate?
I’m really asking. I’m not that educated on this stuff.
so you have the consumer rate which is what we can get t-bills at (which is what you linked), but the fed also loans to major banks at the prime rate and those loans are huge. like, billions dollar loans. those loans are at the prime rate and it’s what i had in mind, but the treasury yield rate is what you or i can get on t-bills. i think the major fed to bank loans use t-bills (i haven’t read up on this stuff in 20 years) instead of moneys, but i don’t remember. what rate the majority of the debt is at, i haven’t looked in a while.
Less than soon…
Thank you. This was extremely informative and helpful.
Pleased to help
Pleasend help
This is the most eloquent way I’ve ever heard this expressed. I feel I have a much much deeper understanding of Americas debt crisis after reading this comment. Do you work in finance? Did you use ai to write any of this?
No I don’t work in finance. I consider myself pretty low on financial literacy to be honest. But that may help with writing explainers. I find that advanced people very often make poor explainers because they don’t realize when they are using jargon or high level concepts that their audience doesn’t have the foundation to understand.
And no I didn’t use AI.