Topic: When will the USA pay their debts, if ever? - page 9. (Read 20979 times)

Virtually nothing in your post is correct.

The dollar has been fiat paper since long before 1971.  What happened in 1971 was a "solution" to Triffin's Dilemma.

China's dollar holdings are off by a couple orders of magnitude from being able to "buy all of it in cash".

The military is not particularly financed by Chinese loans.  In fact, China doesn't make any loans as such.  What really happens is that dollars flood into China in trade for manufactured goods, and the Chinese central bank has to do something with them.  In the past, they've used them to buy US Treasuries, which are essentially dollars in different packaging.  Though the end result is similar, buying debt instruments on the market isn't what most people have in mind when they think of someone "making a loan".

At any rate, Chinese holdings are pretty much flat, and have been for a while now.  This reflects an appetite for risk on the part of the Chinese central bank more than anything else.  During times of crisis, global demand for safety rises, and treasuries do quite well, because as bad as it is in the US, it tends to be far worse elsewhere.

Banks do produce much of value.  It is just hard to see that right now because their productive work is swamped by gambling and manipulation schemes.  Your gripe should really be with the governments that have turned them into instruments of the state, and that shelter them from losses.  It is hard to imagine an industry that wouldn't be similarly corrupt if raised in a similar environment.  If your industry was given a stack of signed blank checks and told to do whatever they like so long as they don't cross a few arbitrary regulatory lines, how long do you think virtue would last?

A question to many of the replies:

What negative effect does U.S. debt have on the government/economy?
Who does the U.S. actually owe this enormous debt to?

The bondholders must be willing to accept BTC for their USD paper. 

USA can certainly pay, with their FBI forfeited BTCs.

Correct.. Maybe there is some agreement between the countries not to pay in cash/money maybe pay them to make US their ally forever.

one word answer is
Never

looks at their total Debts, and it keep increasing
it is impossible to pay back their all debts,

Corruption levels in the US might be low when compared to developing countries, but it is still not insignificant.

They can't pay their debts, every economy is based on debt and for it to continue expanding there must be something that pushes industries and states forward. Debt that is, for how stupid it sounds it seems to have worked until now. Needless to say things are not looking good for the future and if there isn't a change in how economy works (take a look to resource based economy) there won't be much to be done. I'm not saying there will be a catastrophe, but rather that there's no way to mantain the status quo: things will change either we decide what to do next or we lose control of it all.

The important thing here is for the US to play a balancing act. Any moves too big make people start to question how the system works and causes them to think critically about the cycles in place. As long as everything seems professional and above board and with oversight and thoughtfulness, it will pass over.

This coupled with the very low rates of corruption in the United States make it seem like a paradise compared to the largesse you find in navigating resources in lots of other countries. As long as the system seems solid and grounded, and as long as the military is big enough to thwart everyone else, and as long as people will keep borrowing dollars.... well you get my drift.

Given that debt-to-gdp ratio is over 100% now and anything over 90% is a drag on economic growth usa should at least crank out a few trillion or so new greenbacks so you don’t have to borrow for a while. Once your debt ratio is down to a manageable 50% you could give the printing presses a rest and hold a big celebration.

I am blind. I don't see anything.

There is a collapse in systems that cause defaults every 200 years, the debt would take more than 200 years to get paid.... do the math.

US wont pay anything in cash..It might be paid thru military services or the likes.

US probably would not be able to pay their debt ever. But that doesn't matter as long as it is the reserve currency of the world, since it will always find creditors in the form of international investors till then...

ever since the dollar started being fiat paper in 71 foreigners started taking America apart, until today where it got to the point where China can pretty much buy all of it in cash.
and the American sheeple actually believe they have an army   America's army is financed by Chinese loans, without those loans the dollar would hyperinflate in a year and the war machine would grind to a halt.

the only thing insane is continuing to allow a group of people to legally print the only currency that is accepted for the payment of taxes and loaning it with interest to the public.

banks produce nothing of value and yet they are worth billions, they are parasites living off the goods produced by the real working population.

From reading this thread, I can only conclude that no one here is older than about 30 years old.  20 years ago, the Japanese were buying up all sorts of iconic American properties^*.  Oh, and in the 70s and 80s, it was the Arabs "on the corner buying everything in sight"^**.

At any rate, no nation that borrows in its own currency (such as the USA) ever needs to have a formal default.  The reason is that we can (and do) use the informal default of inflation.

Also nice to see the insane "money is debt and you can't pay it off" crew making a good showing in this thread.

* 1992.  Fiction, but it shows the mood.
** Happy Birthday from 1982

You should also look at the the percentage break down of where this money is owe'd.

A pretty high percentage is actually owned by the American People (and businesses and what not). So if all debts were called in tomorrow, we'd end up paying ourselves a lot of money.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure the USA is owe'd something in the neighborhood of $.75 for every dollar of our national debt. What this means is that if someone was to call in all the debts at once we'd only need to pay off $.25 of every dollar of debt with our own economy. Other countries will pay off the rest for us.

That being said, this will never happen. Its economic suicide for the entire world. So don't worry about it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11146844/New-Yorks-iconic-Waldorf-Astoria-sold-to-Chinese-businessmen.html

the Chinese bought the Waldorf Astoria one of America's most famous hotels.
if you told this anyone 50 years ago they would laugh at you.
its a good thing the white house and the statue of liberty aren't for sale, or the Chinese would just put it on a steam boat back to China too.

America has become a Chinese debt slave and a joke.

America has a net debt (that is liabilities minus assets) of 4.7 trillion to foreigners.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/external-debt
and yes, its never getting paid back, at least not in the same purchasing power, its only a question of when the default/inflation will happen.
it will 100% happen eventually, America's lenders won't continue throwing good money after bad forever, and indeed they are already stopping.

The thing with countries debt is that it never will get paid because they will never stop lending money so they're kept in perpetual state of debt which is what the debitors want. The money just gets drip fed, but the debt will never be cleared.