The U.S. borrowed $50B a week for the past five months, the CBO says

Posted by testing22321 6 hours ago

Counter35Comment10OpenOriginal

Comments

Comment by cs702 6 hours ago

Linkbait headline. Without context, these figures mean nothing.

You can see the debt-to-GDP ratios here:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S

Comment by skyberrys 5 hours ago

Am I supposed to take away from these plots that we are all good since it's been steadily above the prior record in 1940 since 2020? Or is everything okay since it was really going up and it did course correct to a bit more of a straight line recently?

The article seems to be communicating that this rate of spending is not sustainable.

Comment by jmalicki 4 hours ago

Japan debt/GDP is more than twice the US's.

https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/11792/what-lev...

Not to say that it's okay, and Japan's economy certainly has issues with stagnation due to the debt load, but it's also not a "we have imminent hyperinflation" kind of thing either.

The concern with the past five months isn't so much the level of debt, it's the rate of change - we're increasing it faster than in the past... and this isn't a COVID-level crisis or a 2008-style deep recession either where Keynesian logic might make more sense.

Comment by treebeard901 4 hours ago

The real question is what percentage of GDP is directly created (or continues to exist) because of the increased debt. When this metric was created the GDP was more authentic and not debt driven.

Comment by DivingForGold 5 hours ago

mirror:

https://archive.ph/N4tZ9

Comment by SilverElfin 4 hours ago

The article has more details than just the headline. For example:

> Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), said that interest payments on the debt are expected to exceed $1 trillion this year, and will surpass $2 trillion by 2036.

That’s very concerning. There’s no plan to run balanced budgets and stop deficits. And no plan to reduce debt. And no plan on economic competitiveness against China. American politics is mostly dominated by irrelevant things that won’t fix the fundamental problems that will come to affect us in the future.

Comment by mannyv 3 hours ago

The correct question is: from whom?

When I was in finance there was a question whether US debt would crowd out other debt instruments. The answer, obviously, is "no." There seems to be an unlimited appetite for zero-risk debt, which makes no sense.

Comment by blitzar 5 hours ago

This must be false. The president wouldn't lie, and if they lied on such a grand scale people wouldnt let them get away with it.

Everyone knows they made 17 trillion dollars from the tariffs.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Comment by Detrytus 2 hours ago

America is done. Expect the bankruptcy in 2-3 years, and the US becoming a China’s province in 10.

Comment by JumpCrisscross 1 hour ago

There are many interpretations of these data. This is not one of them. America will sacrifice its foreign lenders before it does its military.