(no subject)

[prog]

Assertion: Most Americans have no idea what the national debt is, nor why having a large debt is bad. This despite the fact that anyone plugged into any news source knows that we have a national debt, and that it is apparently very large indeed and growing ever larger. But I don't think anyone in the mainstream news ever stops to go into any more detail about it.

I assert this because I don't know what I means. That it, I know its dictionary definition, but I couldn't enumerate with confidence what trouble we as a nation are inviting by running up such an enormous tab. One could draw parallels between national debt and and personal debt, but this metaphor seems to have little practical application; if the country gets harassing phone calls from foreign bill collectors, we are not privy to it.

I think of this when I see an elegant argument that part of the appeal of the current administration lay in its favoring a borrow-and-spend strategy versus a tax-and-spend one. Rather than taking hard-earned money away from its citizens, it *poof* makes money appear by arcane magics. And isn't that better?

Opponents of Reagan, Bush41 and Bush43 have ever leaned on the horn that shouts the ever-increasing depth of our debt hole. But until there's a national awareness of why any average American should care, I think this effort is wasted.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

A national deficit is bad because the money eventually does need to be repaid, and that makes the government beholden to the lienholders. In the case of the current administration, that means foreign countries -- notably, China -- which is upsetting to thoughts of sovereignty. We do, literally, get "harassing phone calls from foregin bill collectors" -- this results in things like Favored Trade Status for China, despite their continuous human rights abuses.

I'll try to dig up more concrete reasons.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

After consulting with my "sources", someone pointed at this essay; the short answer appears to be, large debt (and therefore large debt payments) leads to runaway inflation, because the Fed prints more money to cover the payments and thereby devalues the dollar.