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The Man Who Sells America’s I.O.U.’s (nytimes.com)
9 points by Maven911 on Aug 25, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments


In terms of real money, there is no money to pay the debt. The banknotes are just debt to pay another debt. It's backed by trust in a good future and a lot of promises of the working horde. But.... what if the crowd can't cope with it anymore? We can't predict the future and sure we can't predict mistakes made by banks or other investors. We can't let the people pay for these mistakes continuely, because the promises aren't built upon that. As long as there is no way to deal with these 'errors', there is no real way to predict investment either. Injecting 'money' (more debt) is not a cure nor a surety.


Interesting story but is this the biggest case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Your best hope is that by the time your bond matures someone else will "invest" to cover you but what happens if they finally reach a point where they can't borrow enough to pay their existing obligations?


It's more like procrastination... why pay today what could be put off to tomorrow?

Regarding your second point, the situation isn't hopeless. The graph with the article shows that it is possible to reduce the national debt, both in real terms and as a percentage of GDP.




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