Right now, the National Debt is ~125% of the GDP and is estimated to climb - we’ll know more March 27th when the quarterly report is published.

I had to do some research on this one because I wasn’t too familiar with how much weight the ratio factors in. For example, Japan is over 200%, but they’re well off due to societal/governmental factors such as low interest rates, high sovereign savings, and keeping a portion of the debt local to the nation itself. On the other hand, Greece is ~160% due to their last recession. They had worker strikes in 2024 due to stagnating wages, but they’re a come back with economic growth projected to hit ~2% and debt ratio to be at ~145% by the end of the year so it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

That being said, the U.S. is in quite a different situation economically. From what I can tell, it’s not great, but not catastrophic either. If our economic growth continues it’s upward trend, maybe we can balance it out. But, if our National Debt continues to grow, or if our GDP starts to taper off, the % gap may widen and we may see a slow and steady downturn in QoL. The economists I ran across seemed to agree that it could be a growing issue and something to keep an eye on how it’s handled. I thought this blogpost was a good read - it doesn’t get into all the nuance but is a decent summary / overlook. For an official overlook you can read the House Summary.

Finally, this is from the approved House 2025 Budget Document (or bill? idk), if you trust that, but it says:

In fiscal year 2024, interest on the debt became the government’s third largest budget line item, following only Social Security and Medicare.

On a sidenote, mmw kinda thing, I don’t think DJT is going to be a good fit for this situation. I don’t think the mixing of corporate interests, deregulation, and shaking of trees is going to pull us out of this mess but entrench the Nation. The only way out is to explain to regular people that our only solution is to tax the Billionaire class, and get our local politicians to enact change.

Maybe I have bought into the propaganda, but am willing to learn more. If we’re pouring Trillions from our National Budget into paying down the ever-growing Federal Debt, where’s the tipping point for the dollars value?

This debt has been ever-growing, by the +5 trillion pretty much every administration, and American prosperity has been on a decline (maybe not for you, but the city I’m sitting in feels it). If we’re not going to tax Billionaires (which we fucking should, by a lot) then what’s the next best thing to bring better prosperity to the American Working Class?

Finally, what do you feel is America’s primary economic concern?

You keep trying to make this a party issue, when it’s not. Biden also increased the National Debt by a similar amount. You’re right, 1 Billion dollars in a pool of Trillions really is a drop in the bucket. I don’t think we need to get anything from Ukraine in return of our support. They’re fighting a foreign offender, they deserved much more than throwing money at the problem, but here we are. Everything we send out of the U.S. that’s not accounted for in the U.S. budget goes into debt; as the National Debt climbed, the U.S. needs to find ways to pay that down, and they’re trying to do that without offending the Billionaire Class buying politicians. So, from Trumps perspective, Ukraine is an easy cut, regardless if we think he’s Putins Puppet, it’s clear Trump doesn’t care for what’s happening in Ukraine.

I support funds for Ukraine over funds for Isreal any day of the week, but that’s just not going to happen under this administration.

I don’t even understand the point you’re trying to make with this one. I guess if you’re referring to me as a trumpoloid you could dumb this response down a bit so I can maybe process it and reply. On a side note, I don’t understand why we (as a Nation) support Israels genocide, but I personally don’t support it so there’s that I guess.

Every president has. It’s been a growing problem through multiple different administrations now. This isn’t a party issue, it’s a “Eat the Rich” issue. The Billionaire class has taking but not putting back in, and they’re expecting regular working people to foot the bill. That’s why the 22 Billion dollar cut on Social Services through HHS instead of taxing the 400+ Billionaires in America.

So do Democrats, it’s been on a hot run for the last decade or so. Through Obama, through Trump, through Biden, and now back to Trump. This is a multi-party issue and the solution is to tax Billionaires.

The National Debt has been on a steady growth since Obama, through Trump, through Biden. Like, it’s an issue that spans multiple presidencies and parties. The U.S. dollars is a global reserve note. So, not only do we need to account for paying it down in our National Budget, but we also can’t just print more money at the problem either. I fully support Ukraine. Russia should not have invaded them, and either we or the EU should have had a stronger opposition than just throwing money at the problem. If we want to continue to support Ukraine, if we want to pay down our National Debt, if we want to continue supporting our Nations social services we need to fucking tax Billionaires and their Trillion dollar companies. Like, corporations buying politicians is a problem.

That National Debt isn’t some invisible barrier, it affects our every day lives, our future, what programs we can support, and the global economy. I don’t know, unless you can explain to me me why the National Debt doesn’t matter, and how we can continue to support Ukraine. I’m here for a discussion.

It’s a bit more complicated than that. We’re not just sending missiles, some of it is logistical, funding, training - some of it doesn’t just come back into our economy, and not in full. For example, there is a fund in the billions for Ukraine and allies to buy weapons from us on a need by basis - but like not immediately. It has been years, it could be years.

More importantly though a good portion of these funds were out of bounds of the National Budget causing National Debt to grow. Now, I’m not saying Ukraine is the sole reason the National Debt is out of control, it’s been a long time coming, but we’re peaking. We print more money, the value of the dollar drops, things get more expensive not just national but worldwide since the dollar is an international currency reserve.

You right, I think there’s always going to be a need for industrial and mechanics. Like, we’re for sure always going to need transport, lumber, steel, infrastructure, logistics, more. When I wrote that I was mostly thinking Steel as we really just don’t have as much a need for it as we used to. Like, sure we need to keep up with infrastructure and national security, etc. but we’re not at war, we’re not expanding as a nation (like big cities) anymore so it’ll never recover to times before NAFTA.

That being said, I really do think we should be making automobiles in house which could bring more Steel back, but on the other hand, do we really want more automobiles? Like, drive by any dealership and there always seem to just be an abundance.

Yeah, I agree I don’t think NAFTA was a wholly wonderful thing - a lot of people lost their jobs, had families at the time, and really, it was poor planning to not realize that what happened happened. I think NAFTA had some good ideas, like trying reduce carbon emissions and trying to ensure workers are being taken care of, but I think overall the transition from industry was fumbled.

I honestly have no idea if tariffs are the answer, but if they aren’t, it seems like people are going to start to realize the quality in life difference. And I mean, it could have a rubberband effect. History has shown that when conditions get bad, workers revolt, pretty much always. If the country is going to be run like a Corporation trying to recoup costs, what’s the percentage before it gets noticeable? Maybe, optimistically, at the end of all this, we can get money out of politics, corporate money specifically, funding transparency, stock? idk about that - stricter rules or something. Then we could actually focus on real things that matter without this weird age of commercial politics.

At the end of the day, I think people of all parties and backgrounds can come together on the idea/conversation to remove money from politics. Having our representation (vote/politician) able to be bought by some billionaire through backchannels (donations, crypto, favors) is simply not fair or in our best interests.

I’m cautiously optimistic. They cut 22 Billion in Social Services. If things keep getting worse, regular people are going to start wondering where that money is going and the veil will be lifted.

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an Amazon worker is a loaded representation of “the people.”

Is it? Amazon and Walmart are the 2 biggest employers in the U.S. Like, there’s a big Walmart in almost every meaningful city or town, and on the outskirts of that town are usually Amazon Warehouses. Walmart, Amazon, Target, Home Depo, (Lowes is Walmart), etc. I feel like these really are representative of “the people”, or “the working man” in the U.S.

The only way a war is coming for the U.S. is if it’s a World War. If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance. I don’t think there is a war coming, I think this all has to do with economics and the National Debt. War is a great way to get rid of National Debt and boost an economy, reduce numbers, etc. but right now, I’m just not seeing it.

I personally think a more likely issue would be that the WTO exchanges the U.S. Dollar with the Chinese Yuan especially as the U.S. lags further behind in exports while Chinese exports continue to grow.

I do think leaving Ukraine was, unfortunately, inevitable. For the U.S. it was a war of attrition and Russia out lasted what the U.S. could monetarily support. I truly hope that the EU is able to support their fight.

I’m not a Republican, but I’ll bite.

The U.S. is kinda in a bad spot right now. Not just politically but economically as well. Our National Debt is the highest it’s ever been. While I’m 100% for taxing Billionaires and their Trillion dollars companies more, by like, a lot, the Billionaires of course don’t want that. So they’re trying to cut what they can and wheel and deal. Why support Climate Change (French EU thing, I don’t remember) acts when you can [pocket the money] use that to pay down debt? The War in Ukraine has unfortunately been drawn out too long for us to stay financially invested in it. Our allies across the sea won’t be able to help our country balance our debt when they have Ukraine to worry about as well. So they’ve decided to put pressure on every external source of revenue while cutting what they can without getting lynched.

Let’s talk about Canada and Mexico, but first, a bit of H I S T O R Y. Back in the 90s or 00s the Clinton Administration implemented NAFTA. The agreement sounded good on paper: Strength our border countries. Lifts us all up by giving all the countries jobs, more opportunity, more demand. While outsourcing our manual labor we can focus on the future: Technology! Hindsight is 20/20 though. Why not move our business to a country where we pay lower wages and will end up with higher profits for future investments (like yachts)? Why not get cheaper parts instead of paying the U.S. prices? A ton of manual labor jobs were lost, and many cities (car manufacturing cities, steel cities, etc.) simply never recovered. NAFTA stayed in place more or less until Trump Trumped it into the USMCA in 2020. That gets renegotiated in 2026 with all 3 countries either coming to an agreement or dissolving the agreement.

From all accounts, NAFTA certainly seemed harmful to the American industry at the time, but can that industry recover, and should it? Personally, I don’t think so, but they seem to think so. So, from my point of view, the reason they’re alienating allies is to extort them for money to help pay down the National Debt and hopefully grow back American industries lost over 2 decades ago.

I’ve been trying to move away from Google Chrome for awhile now. Brave was the easiest move for me - it’s super slick and almost exactly like Google Chorme. But they just cannot help themselves from pushing Cryto BS on the startup page like every day - it’s weird. I get they offset advertisements with Crypto, and maybe before The President ran a Crypto rugpull I’d be onboard, but now that the Rich Elites have publicly shown their hand in how they want to use Crypto I just can’t support Brave.

Anyway, I’ve moved to Opera for the time being. If anyone else has suggestions I’m open to hear em, but like, I’m too used to webkit devtools.

Imagine traveling down a liminal space of tubes and the only signs are nondescript TLDs.

No sir, I don’t like it.

What’s the explanation? AWS sounds like ad trackage.