[username90]

Government debt.

https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/government-debt-to-gdp

For example Sweden where I live has reduced their government debt to GDP ratio pretty consistently the past 25 years, and I haven't noticed any problems with it. People saying that we would have problems if governments balanced their budgets are just big fat liars.

[Scandiravian]

I think calling other "big fat liars" is a sad approach to a discourse. I don't know who the "people" you refer to are, so unless you specify that, I can't comment on it. I can't remember making a claim like that

In fact reducing national debt through taxation is an effective way of reducing inflation. Reducing national debt does not mean the economy will fail.

The economy is not a binary system ("success", "fail"), so the more interesting question to me, is whether Sweden's economy would have done better if they had chosen a different economic policy

[username90]

If a politician funds all their initiatives via debt instead of taxation in order to get popular support and thus push the problems down to the line that is a pretty shitty thing to do, but it is fine sometimes you have to do it and there is a tradeoff. But when they then argue "Taking on debt is actually a good thing, don't blame me for doing it I had to do it! Everyone does it! Paying off debt is actually a bad thing to do for governments!" they crossed the line and I can no longer consider them as good people. So I used those words since that is what they are, shitty people deserve shitty treatment.

[Scandiravian]

I'm sad to hear that you automatically label people you disagree with as "shitty people" and they "deserve shitty treatment". It eliminates the possibility for dialogue, empathy and learning

You essentially block yourself of improving yourself by realising you might be wrong about something

It sounds to me like you think of a national economy as a household budget. Taxes are income and welfare is expenses, you take loans from banks, which have interest and needs to be paid back or you get punished

It's a nice and simple explanation, which also happens to be 100% wrong

Government debt have no interest and there's no creditor who needs to be paid back. Whenever the Swedish government prints 100 crowns, it goes 100 crowns more into debt

Whenever it gets 100 crowns in through taxes it resolves 100 crowns of debt

National debt is not the same as private debt. They're two completely different things, that unfortunately have kind of similar names

National debt is simply the amount of the national currency in circulation. To be "debt free", Sweden would have to remove every single crown from circulation, which obviously is not a good idea for the economy

Additionally - the government does not use taxes to fund spending. Swedish crowns are essentially worthless to the Swedish government, because they own the money printing press and could make infinite money if they wanted to

If parents setup a system for their kids, where they get small paper notes for doing chores, which can be traded in for the daily WiFi password, the notes have no value for the parents and the WiFi would work without the kids paying chore notes, but they're still useful because they facilitate the "doing of chores" and have value to the kids because of the "WiFi tax"

In other words the purpose of taxes is to create demand for the currency to match the supply the government is creating by printing more money. By having a demand for the currency, the government can use it to pay people to do "chores" it wants done by simply turning on the money printer, then collecting taxes at a later date

[username90]

> National debt is simply the amount of the national currency in circulation.

> Government debt have no interest

No it isn't, this is such a stupid dumb lie, why did you fall for this? The big fat liars really got to you. USA paid 500 billion in interest on their government debt last year, "Interest free" my ass.

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht...

And about my harsh language, your side on this is like the "smoking doesn't cause cancer" propaganda funded by tobacco companies. Some must have strong incentives to want to increase government debt, otherwise such crap wouldn't be spread around.

[Scandiravian]

I'm sad you think that about a person you do not know, since it to me is a signal that you are not interested in having an open discussion on the topic

Bonds have an interest rate on them, that essentially equate to the government saying "X amount of years from now, we'll be printing this amount of money". It's a roundabout way of simply printing money directly

If a bond need to be realised the government switch on the money printer and hands it out (though it's not really a printer, since it's all digital). If they hadn't issued the bond they could simply create the exact same amount of money and have the exact same amount of "national debt". Sure it's called interest rates, but from the government's side of the table it makes no difference

The government can print infinite money at any time and there is literally no difference in the taxes needed, the level of national debt, or the government's ability to fund welfare whether they issue bonds or not. Bonds are a plan for how much the government expects to print in the future, not loans that requires taxes to be paid

It's your choice to put me in some box belonging to a "side". I don't see myself that way and you telling me which side I belong to is not really going to change that. It does however make me sad to read your message. I think the world already has too much conflict and the only way I can see out of it is with dialogue, openness, and empathy

Putting people in boxes, on a "side", or assigning them a label prevents all of those and will only create more conflict and more frustration

I'm guessing you're scared of the concepts in MTT, since you're comparing it to the tobacco industry.

My personal experience is that understanding people you disagree with is the best way to move past being scared. I hope you make a choice for yourself to approach disagreement in a more constructive way for your own sake

I'm fine with you having a different worldview than me, but I'm not really interested in hearing what you have to say if it's not done in a respectful dialogue, so I'm not interested in discussing this further with you

[username90]

> Bonds have an interest rate on them

Exactly, and bonds are included in government debt. Hence this statement is wrong:

> Government debt have no interest

Also this statement is also wrong, since government bonds aren't money in circulation:

> National debt is simply the amount of the national currency in circulation.

Another proof about this statement being wrong: Sweden has currency worth just 1.26% of GDP in circulation, but about 35% of GDP in debt. If what you said was true that would be an impossibility. You are trying to spread falsehoods and even contradict yourself, that is a fact.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_krona