| >Who do we owe? You can look this up. 21T is owned by the public (think retirement funds, pensions, etc., a lot of which own treasuries). Simply blowing off paying them would wreck the US economy and destroy lots of people. So it's real money owed to real people. Foreign govts own around a third of the debt - same thing - they invested in US treasuries and those assets are intertwined in their economies, just like ours. Of this Japan has 1.3T and China 1T. State and local US govts own around 1T for their pension funds. So we owe it to any actor that has purchased US Treasuries, and that's a lot of people, big and small. >it's fucking bananas nonsense No it's not. It's simply big, but then again, so is the US and world economy. There is no goofy, ill-conceived, wholesale ignorant corruption going on. > Is there a credit check? Yes, it's the rate at which buyers willingly buy Treasuries on the open market. If enough people/institutions lower their trust, rates go up. It's as simple as that. The main question is not how much debt the US carries, but can it afford to service the debt, and so far, that is a yes. Servicing the debt is around 10% of federal receipts, which is a decent chunk, but by no means debilitating. |