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Why Doesn't America Have a SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND?

We saw a great social science experiment about this during the pandemic.

The government started sending free money to everyone.

Result? No one wanted to work (especially at the low end of the income scale).
Would you work at the low end of the scale, or suggest your kids should do so?
Why are you so married to thinking people are going to line up for lowest of the lowest wages? You are stuck in some last decade shit.
 
I think, due to the USD current position as reserve currency, that it will be sustained longer than either of us would guess.
That's definitely our hole card. But if we start spending a huge chunk of our budget on interest, whats left for the important stuff that most of us can agree on?

Or to put it another way, if we are borrowing to pay the interest on the debt, how can we afford to give the wealthy the tax cuts, tax credits, and subsidies that they need? Yeah, sarcasm, but that's kind of how we got here. I mean that isn't all we've done wrong to dig this hole, but it's a big part of it,
 
That's definitely our hole card. But if we start spending a huge chunk of our budget on interest, whats left for the important stuff that most of us can agree on?

Or to put it another way, if we are borrowing to pay the interest on the debt, how can we afford to give the wealthy the tax cuts, tax credits, and subsidies that they need? Yeah, sarcasm, but that's kind of how we got here. I mean that isn't all we've done wrong to dig this hole, but it's a big part of it,

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And that may be our only answer.

Print the money. Pay off the debt. Take the devaluation hit. Don't look back.

Much better than printing the money and not paying off the debt. Which some would say is what we're doing now.

I'm sure you hate that answer, but do you have a better one?

I mean we could muddle along with big deficits and more unwise tax cuts until the world decides they are tired of us jerking everyone's chain and ditches the US dollar as the reserve currency. Then we get hit with that devaluation but still have the ruinous debt.

At the least, we should be printing money and quietly buying our own debt - replacing higher yield private and foreign paper with low yield US paper.
 
And that may be our only answer.

Print the money. Pay off the debt. Take the devaluation hit. Don't look back.

Much better than printing the money and not paying off the debt. Which some would say is what we're doing now.

I'm sure you hate that answer, but do you have a better one?
Balance the budget, the retirement of debt will occur as it matures. No need to default, no need to print. Just quitting letting the Feds live beyond our means and the problem will be corrected.

This requires politicians to not spend more than they are willing to tax the public.

Not what I expect will happen. I expect the printing will continue because that’s the (politically) easiest path forward.
It’s why I see a future in hard money. The ratio of USD to any hard money will just get worse and worse, so don’t save in USD to best retain purchasing power.
 
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I would be fine with a 1% national sales tax to help with the debt. But first they need to stop adding to it. That has to happen first.
 
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Balance the budget, the retirement of debt will occur as it matures.
Sounds reasonable. But 3 questions:

1. How long will that take? Last I heard, our debt was in a mix of short and long-term paper. Used to be mostly long term, iirc, but a lot was switched to take advantage of artificially low interest rates.

2. So, say 10 years to retire the debt. That's $3 trillion a year. And it's front-loaded, because some is short-term debt. Maybe more like $4 trillion for the first few years. I'm just ball-parking here, so feel free to correct me.

3. So that's basically doubling the national budget. Where does that money come from?

Which brings us to your point about how willing our politicians are to raise taxes.
 
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