(06-16-2017, 09:17 AM)Byron LeftTown Wrote: The numbers are meaningless.  Might as well be 100 trillion - it will never be paid back because the debt does not really exist.  It's a total Ponzi scheme.  The "government" is borrowing from "itself".  It makes "payments" with more borrowed "money".

Everyone "buys a bond" that pays 2% when inflation is 4%.  There are no risk-free investments that keep up with inflation.  A whole generation's savings have been destroyed with 0.01% interest on savings accounts.  Suppose you worked all your life and retired with $400,000.  At current interest rates you would earn $40 per year.

I know I'm going down the rabbit hole here, but I have to ask. 

If the debt does not really exist, and we can just print as much money as we want, then why don't we just print the money to pay the government's obligations, and then we can reduce everyone's taxes to zero?   If the numbers are, as you say, meaningless, then why levy taxes at all?

---