National debt how long to pay off

Foreign investors own about half of publicly held U. The bad news is there may be — should be — a point when the world changes its mind about the dollar and the value it represents. But if or when the dollar stops being the global reserve currency, the United States will have a harder time covering the interest it already owes, much less borrowing more.

In fact, we look pretty good. The problem is the moment the U. The United States is not experiencing that pressure today — far from it. But how would the U. Some argue that the Federal Reserve would simply step in and buy Treasuries itself in order to keep costs down. There is some precedent for the Fed buying Treasuries when no one else would — that was partly how the U. The Fed agreed to purchase Treasuries in an effort to keep interest rates low, and thus keep borrowing costs low for the federal government.

The public did likewise — war bonds were aggressively marketed to civilians primarily to keep inflation in check while interest rates were kept artificially low to finance the war. The Fed is always in a position to step in and buy it and keep the interest rates low. But those interventions could only be effective in the short term.

Most experts agree that, barring renewed demand for U. Germany in the s. Yugoslavia in the s. Zimbabwe in the s. In each case, borrowing costs go up, employment goes down and desperation sets in. In fact, something closer to the opposite is true — the Fed has had to deal with persistently low inflation since The world since has shifted so much that inflation is probably not the same concept we knew it as during the financial crisis, MacGuineas said.

The central bank this summer even announced that it would look to let inflation run a little hot for a period in order to make up for years of tirelessly low inflation, suggesting that interventions by the Fed in the Treasury market would have to be almost excessive to the extreme in order to impact inflation.

I mean, nothing that could possibly be negotiated into a stimulus bill right now would flip that switch. And then the question at that point is, do these things happen all of a sudden? Or do they creep up on you? In ascertaining when government debt leads to these kinds of unenviable outcomes, many experts have zeroed in on not the absolute total of national debt, but rather what portion of the debt is spent on financing your old debt versus financing new projects or services.

About a quarter of the publicly held U. But there are other economists — proponents of the much-hyped modern monetary theory — who argue that the U. So in this way, the government actually never has to pay back the debt, and in fact, it can actually let the debt grow forever. But that line of reasoning has its detractors. Besides inflation, the debt can have other effects on the economy, and those other effects could render the pace at which the U.

If the government accumulates enough debt, de Rugy argues, eventually money that could have been used for investment in economic growth will have to be used to make interest payments to investors instead. Although the U. And already, the U. That brings us to now. How should the government think about the debt at a moment with such an overwhelming public health and economic need for government intervention?

We can do too little and sputter. Democrats, committed to going it alone on the bill, are split on how targeted the bill should be — that is, which expenditures will best justify the expense. For example, you might have to take on more risk than you'd like to obtain a higher dividend payout.

Income-seeking investors tend to especially like Dividend Aristocrats. Musk was responding to a Twitter commenter who said Musk would end up with more Tesla shares if he sold options instead of shares.

It makes sense for GE Digital to be included with the power and renewable energy businesses because its main focus is on energy right now. How individual shareholders, who can expect to own shares in both, are affected by the news. Shares of the EV battery technology company had shot up The passage of a long-awaited infrastructure bill and growth moves from QuantumScape this week powered the stock higher.

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