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Notes -
The MMT (which I don’t believe in) people come closer to the truth that debt is fake in America than the old GOP Austrian types always worried about it as a sign of future collapse.
That which matters is the ability of a society to be productive and then matching supply to demand. Debt and taxes drain current demand.
The big area that at one point made debt potential real in America was our dependence on foreign energy and needing faith in the dollar to purchase our energy needs. Since shale this is no longer an issue. America is different as an economy because we are basically self-sufficient and a diversified economy with productive capacity in all areas. We miss a few areas like cheap consumer goods but giving up Chinese goods from Temu and stocking our homes with gadgets isn’t going to collapse the nation.
Even things that seem strategic like rare earth metals we only use foreign suppliers because of our environmental regs. If a dollar crisis hits we could in short time ramp up our own rare earth materials.
The big risks to having a lot of debt is the ability to support the dollar on markets but the US economy has already restructured where dollar value is less of a concern.
We could have internal political disputes. The way you control inflation is by doing things that hurt demand. If future benefits create too much demand causing inflation we would have some political disputes. Do young people get hit with taxes killing their consumer demand or do we cut SS benefits and hurt older peoples demands? I do not know if that day ever comes but it’s not an extinction level event.
The American collapse will come when we are no longer capable of creating high GDP per capita which fundamental comes from endowed natural resources and citizens productivity. Debt doesn’t scare me but the culture wars do scare me on these issues if we forget the culture that generates economic productivity.
Debt is much more real for small countries without diversified industry. You are too small to have economies of scale in all industries. If your primary industry faces a decline then your fiscal capacity matters a lot more in global trade.
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