When will the USA pay their debts, if ever?

[btcmulisha]

US wont pay anything in cash..It might be paid thru military services or the likes.

[1713536442]

1713536442

[1713536442]

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[1713536442]

1713536442

[RonPaulBTC]

There is a collapse in systems that cause defaults every 200 years, the debt would take more than 200 years to get paid.... do the math.

[TheLoser]

I am blind. I don't see anything.

[BootstrapCoinDev]

Given that debt-to-gdp ratio is over 100% now and anything over 90% is a drag on economic growth usa should at least crank out a few trillion or so new greenbacks so you don’t have to borrow for a while. Once your debt ratio is down to a manageable 50% you could give the printing presses a rest and hold a big celebration.

[howhardcanitbe]

The important thing here is for the US to play a balancing act. Any moves too big make people start to question how the system works and causes them to think critically about the cycles in place. As long as everything seems professional and above board and with oversight and thoughtfulness, it will pass over.

This coupled with the very low rates of corruption in the United States make it seem like a paradise compared to the largesse you find in navigating resources in lots of other countries. As long as the system seems solid and grounded, and as long as the military is big enough to thwart everyone else, and as long as people will keep borrowing dollars.... well you get my drift.

[Fabrizio89]

They can't pay their debts, every economy is based on debt and for it to continue expanding there must be something that pushes industries and states forward. Debt that is, for how stupid it sounds it seems to have worked until now. Needless to say things are not looking good for the future and if there isn't a change in how economy works (take a look to resource based economy) there won't be much to be done. I'm not saying there will be a catastrophe, but rather that there's no way to mantain the status quo: things will change either we decide what to do next or we lose control of it all.

[pattu1]

The important thing here is for the US to play a balancing act. Any moves too big make people start to question how the system works and causes them to think critically about the cycles in place. As long as everything seems professional and above board and with oversight and thoughtfulness, it will pass over.

This coupled with the very low rates of corruption in the United States make it seem like a paradise compared to the largesse you find in navigating resources in lots of other countries. As long as the system seems solid and grounded, and as long as the military is big enough to thwart everyone else, and as long as people will keep borrowing dollars.... well you get my drift.

Corruption levels in the US might be low when compared to developing countries, but it is still not insignificant.

[Nextgen]

one word answer is
Never

looks at their total Debts, and it keep increasing
it is impossible to pay back their all debts,

[Bit N Roll]

one word answer is
Never

looks at their total Debts, and it keep increasing
it is impossible to pay back their all debts,

Correct.. Maybe there is some agreement between the countries not to pay in cash/money maybe pay them to make US their ally forever.

[novacn]

When will the USA pay their debts, if ever?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

USA can certainly pay, with their FBI forfeited BTCs.

[pattu1]

When will the USA pay their debts, if ever?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

USA can certainly pay, with their FBI forfeited BTCs.

The bondholders must be willing to accept BTC for their USD paper. 

[worle1bm]

A question to many of the replies:

What negative effect does U.S. debt have on the government/economy?
Who does the U.S. actually owe this enormous debt to?

[kjj]

ever since the dollar started being fiat paper in 71 foreigners started taking America apart, until today where it got to the point where China can pretty much buy all of it in cash.
and the American sheeple actually believe they have an army   America's army is financed by Chinese loans, without those loans the dollar would hyperinflate in a year and the war machine would grind to a halt.

the only thing insane is continuing to allow a group of people to legally print the only currency that is accepted for the payment of taxes and loaning it with interest to the public.

banks produce nothing of value and yet they are worth billions, they are parasites living off the goods produced by the real working population.

Virtually nothing in your post is correct.

The dollar has been fiat paper since long before 1971.  What happened in 1971 was a "solution" to Triffin's Dilemma.

China's dollar holdings are off by a couple orders of magnitude from being able to "buy all of it in cash".

The military is not particularly financed by Chinese loans.  In fact, China doesn't make any loans as such.  What really happens is that dollars flood into China in trade for manufactured goods, and the Chinese central bank has to do something with them.  In the past, they've used them to buy US Treasuries, which are essentially dollars in different packaging.  Though the end result is similar, buying debt instruments on the market isn't what most people have in mind when they think of someone "making a loan".

At any rate, Chinese holdings are pretty much flat, and have been for a while now.  This reflects an appetite for risk on the part of the Chinese central bank more than anything else.  During times of crisis, global demand for safety rises, and treasuries do quite well, because as bad as it is in the US, it tends to be far worse elsewhere.

Banks do produce much of value.  It is just hard to see that right now because their productive work is swamped by gambling and manipulation schemes.  Your gripe should really be with the governments that have turned them into instruments of the state, and that shelter them from losses.  It is hard to imagine an industry that wouldn't be similarly corrupt if raised in a similar environment.  If your industry was given a stack of signed blank checks and told to do whatever they like so long as they don't cross a few arbitrary regulatory lines, how long do you think virtue would last?

[Zer0p0inT]

Fiat will eventually and inevitably collapse, as it has throughout all of history. Who cares if the USA pays their debts back, which they probably wont be able to since the whole system is built on accruing debt.

[segvec]

Never. It's impossible. The interest alone is impossible to pay, nevermind the debt.

This.
+1.

It is impossible unless all billionaires...and then some chip in.
Highly unlikely though.

The interest itself is putting them into even more debt beyond belief.

[Robert Paulson]

ever since the dollar started being fiat paper in 71 foreigners started taking America apart, until today where it got to the point where China can pretty much buy all of it in cash.
and the American sheeple actually believe they have an army   America's army is financed by Chinese loans, without those loans the dollar would hyperinflate in a year and the war machine would grind to a halt.

the only thing insane is continuing to allow a group of people to legally print the only currency that is accepted for the payment of taxes and loaning it with interest to the public.

banks produce nothing of value and yet they are worth billions, they are parasites living off the goods produced by the real working population.

Virtually nothing in your post is correct.

The dollar has been fiat paper since long before 1971.  What happened in 1971 was a "solution" to Triffin's Dilemma.

China's dollar holdings are off by a couple orders of magnitude from being able to "buy all of it in cash".

The military is not particularly financed by Chinese loans.  In fact, China doesn't make any loans as such.  What really happens is that dollars flood into China in trade for manufactured goods, and the Chinese central bank has to do something with them.  In the past, they've used them to buy US Treasuries, which are essentially dollars in different packaging.  Though the end result is similar, buying debt instruments on the market isn't what most people have in mind when they think of someone "making a loan".

At any rate, Chinese holdings are pretty much flat, and have been for a while now.  This reflects an appetite for risk on the part of the Chinese central bank more than anything else.  During times of crisis, global demand for safety rises, and treasuries do quite well, because as bad as it is in the US, it tends to be far worse elsewhere.

Banks do produce much of value.  It is just hard to see that right now because their productive work is swamped by gambling and manipulation schemes.  Your gripe should really be with the governments that have turned them into instruments of the state, and that shelter them from losses.  It is hard to imagine an industry that wouldn't be similarly corrupt if raised in a similar environment.  If your industry was given a stack of signed blank checks and told to do whatever they like so long as they don't cross a few arbitrary regulatory lines, how long do you think virtue would last?

before 1971 America was promising other governments that they could turn in their dollars and get gold, that means the dollar was backed by gold and was not fiat (or at least so it was claimed).
Nixon even said he was suspending the convertibility to gold only temporarily, of course today we know it was just another lie and the temporary is permanent.

the military is funded by the government, the government has been running deficits consistently for 15 years at least.
whats a deficit? it means it wastes more money than it gets in from taxing (robbing) the local population.
where does the difference come from? from selling government bonds of which the biggest buyers used to be the Chinese followed by the Japanese.
these bonds have to be repaid with interest, hence they are exactly the same as a loan no matter how you spin it.

of course these days the biggest buyer of bonds is the federal reserve, who just buys them with printed money (purchasing power stolen from everyone else), because no one else is willing to continue loaning real unprinted dollars to America who they suspect has become the biggest deadbeat in the history of the world.

as far as i can tell banks were always a fraudulent industry.
in the past they only ran a fractional reserve racket, today they simply have a printing press and can print the reserves too.

[kjj]

before 1971 America was promising other governments that they could turn in their dollars and get gold, that means the dollar was backed by gold and was not fiat (or at least so it was claimed).
Nixon even said he was suspending the convertibility to gold only temporarily, of course today we know it was just another lie and the temporary is permanent.

the military is funded by the government, the government has been running deficits consistently for 15 years at least.
whats a deficit? it means it wastes more money than it gets in from taxing (robbing) the local population.
where does the difference come from? from selling government bonds of which the biggest buyers used to be the Chinese followed by the Japanese.
these bonds have to be repaid with interest, hence they are exactly the same as a loan no matter how you spin it.

of course these days the biggest buyer of bonds is the federal reserve, who just buys them with printed money (purchasing power stolen from everyone else), because no one else is willing to continue loaning real unprinted dollars to America who they suspect has become the biggest deadbeat in the history of the world.

as far as i can tell banks were always a fraudulent industry.
in the past they only ran a fractional reserve racket, today they simply have a printing press and can print the reserves too.

I don't think you understand what "fiat" means.  And the dollar today is no less convertible to gold than it was in 1970.  Just who does it, and at what rate, is different.

If you buy a share of Apple stock from the market, do you think that Apple now has more capital to work with?  Because I think it important that you understand that it doesn't.  It is certainly true that an Apple gained capital, and you gained a share, and the indirect linkage between those events is crucial for the system, but you did not invest in Apple.  In the same way, when China buys US Treasuries from the market, and I think we've established that they barely do this these days anyway, they aren't loaning anyone anything.  They are purchasing an income stream created when someone else (the primary dealer banks) made the loan.  But even that is wrong, because the Treasury created the loan to itself and then sold the income stream off as a bond.

You have a perversely money-centric view of things.  If you think of government spending in terms of wealth (goods and services), rather than money, it may snap into place for you.

P.S.  The concept of "real unprinted dollars" leaves me speechless.

[sgk]

In a related note, is there any major country that is completely debt-free?

Everyone seems to be owing something to someone else.

[Turnkey]

It's never going to happen. Those numbers are a joke: trillion, quadrillion, sentillion, zillion, they will just keep adding zeros.

[Gargulan]

No point trying to pay back the debt if it is still being used as a reserve currency. Until the status quote changes and "real asset" is being demanded to repay the debt, the debt will probably continue to pile up.