I guess this comes down to semantics. Paying off an old loan with a new one isn‘t ”paying off your debt“ in my eyes. You are still in debt afterwards.
The total amount of debt will never come down again without hyperinflation. Whether that is good, bad, or doesn‘t matter is up to economists. But that‘s how it is.
Musk, Bezos, and other billionaires have most of their cash in the form of loans taken out against their paper assets. This means they are actually producing more than enough new value to cover the interest on those loans, so essentially the loans they get are free money handed to them by someone who believes they'll pay it back, which those billionaires can then put into more productive or higher-yield enterprises and make even more money with it. When borrowing or refinancing is a good idea, you do it, because you'd be losing potential gains if you didn't. That's essentially the situation with America.
> I guess this comes down to semantics. Paying off an old loan with a new one isn‘t ”paying off your debt“ in my eyes. You are still in debt afterwards.
In the context of meeting obligations to creditors, which is what is being discussed, it absolutely is.
> The total amount of debt will never come down again without hyperinflation.
What has fundamentally changed since the last time it did which was (checks) Q2 2019?
> Whether that is good, bad, or doesn‘t matter is up to economists. But that‘s how it is.
There is very little reason to believe that. In fact, to the extent that the debt and inflation are related, the same acts which drive the debt up drive inflation, not the other way around.
You mean the real value of debt. By the way, it can't be paid off because negative interest rates, which represent the power of the debtor to refuse additional debt, are either ignored or people are trying to make them illegal. Germany has negative interest rates on its public debt and debt is going down.
Again, this comes down to how you define ”pay the debt“. To me, if you pay back your debt, you are dept-free. Re-financing (at the same interest rate) is debt-neutral, if you follow this logic.
> To me, if you pay back your debt, you are dept-free.
Graber's point is primarily about foreign holders of US debt and how this is the American empire extracting tribute from its vassals. Whether America is debt-free or not really relevant.
