Federal debt is non federal savings. It is like your savings account- your money is your bank's debt. The fed does not spend this money. It is monetary sovereign. It has 100% control over issuing money and never needs to borrow or to save its own money.
This business of calling it a debt is a BIG LIE. It's private savings, AKA wealth just stored for safekeeping with the Fed. The bigger the number, the richer the economy.

That debt if FRAUDULENT! Nothing of value was borrowed, just zero's and one's from the private for profit corporation called the federal reserve and other countries zero's and ones, clicked out on a keyboard!

Is this propaganda and fear stoking? Sovereign currency like value is a human construct, you only believe it is necessary because..... you believe it is necessary. A nation can call it debt, but in reality it's just a line that cane be paid off with another line. Good luck humans.

All THE COUNTRY'S NEED'S TO BUY U.S BOMBS NOT BONDS THEY CAN USE THEM OTHER THEN FOR PAPER WEIGHTS

The deficit is what we get when spending exceeds taxation. Our country taxes its people at a LOWER rate than any other industrialized nation in the world, even as we spend more on our military than the nest 10 countries combined. Politicians have chosen deficits over higher taxes because that is what we want.

Obviously we have chosen well because the U.S. is the strongest country militarily and economically on earth.

We were, but not anymore.

Right, exactly why America has lost every war it has started since WW2.

which declared wars were they that we started again? surprisingly enough the last Declaration of War was WW2. The other armed conflicts, were engaged in with Congressional authority and funding but for one reason or another never had a Declaration of War by Congress. The most recent armed conflict authorized by Congress was called authorization for use of force in Iraq with the expressed intent of removing Sadam from power. I think that war was considered not only won, but a success, prior to 2010.

You are sooo right Bob. America's military is very weak and all our enemies have defeated us since WW2. You live in a cave, right?

It will top $30 trillion in 10 years if Trump wins. http://www.cbsnews.com/news...

Sadly, I am old enough to remember when the government swore to the "People" that the national debt would NEVER exceed 1 Million dollars. The other sad part is that almost all of this debt is tied to government programs that have never even approved by the Congress.

One million dollars? We passed that up over 100 years ago. Since we abandoned the gold standard for our money in 1933, our debt has increased more than 850 fold.

I think the gold standard was dropped in '71 or there abouts when France ordered its gold repatriation which would have crippled the Fed. So they made a plan to dig the hole so big that everyone would fall in. They made the currency a speculative cyrrency, otherwise known as fiat currency. But Britain wanted a piece of the pie so my government at the time followed suit and we experienced what we knew as mere decimilation which was, what we were told was merely losing shillings and all that. But it was the decimation of wealth and literally free money to corporations to buy up everything with credit. Up until that point you had to be a successful business man rooted in the realms of hard work. By the time we all worked out what had happened the world's assets had all been looted.

World's assets had all been looted? Really?

You can buy all the gold you want or anything else you want. Our fiat money has raised living standards in America to the highest in our history with record amounts of employment and real median weekly wages at a all time high and rising.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

"In the terminal collapse of the Roman Empire, there was perhaps no greater burden to the average citizen than the extreme taxes they were forced to pay.

The tax ‘reforms’ of Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century were so rigid and unwavering that many people were driven to starvation and bankruptcy. The state went so far as to chase around widows and children to collect taxes owed."
By the 4th century, the Roman economy and tax structure were so dismal that many farmers abandoned their lands in order to receive public entitlements.

In the economic decline of any civilization, political elites routinely call on a very limited playbook: more debt, more regulation, more restriction on freedoms, more debasement of the currency, more taxation, and more insidious enforcement.

Further, the propaganda machine goes into high gear, ensuring the peasant class is too deluded by patriotic fervor to notice they’re being plundered by the state."

Nobody wants to increase taxes. That is why we have the debt which has never hurt us in anyway whatsoever. Our economy is the strongest in the world and the interest we pay on the debt is at historic lows. Your fear mongering is nonsense and you know it.

The theory is that infinite debt and infinite inflation create infinite growth. It looks that way when you play with the numbers the way economists do. To the average worker who sees a larger proportion of his paycheck going to basic necessities and required taxes and insurance, it doesn't look very much like growth, and the dollar value of his check isn't getting any bigger.

Infinite inflation? Our inflation is at a 50 year low.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Infinite debt? Our debt is 105% of our GDP. Japan's debt is more than twice as great and it has no problems with it at all.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

The average worker's paycheck is at an all time high and rising.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Maybe if you got your facts straight, you might be able to understand what is happening in the economy. Turn off Fox Noise and learn something.

Both debt and inflation keep going up. When you say " inflation is at a 50 year low" you mean the RATE of inflation, not that the prices of goods and services are anywhere near stable. You make a similar error with debt. The entire idea is of course unsustainable in a finite world.

It would be unsustainable if we had a gold standard for our money because there is a finite amount of gold in the world.

But of course we have not been on the gold standard since 1933 and no other country in the world is on a gold standard, or any other finite standard either.

You are ignoring the simple fact that we can create infinite amounts of money and the Fed has been doing just that since 1933. In fact, it has quintupled its balance sheet since 2008.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

And the money stock is up 70% since then.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

So you are dead wrong because you simply ignore the facts.

No, my friend. Money is just a numbers games, as you say, because it has no real value. But it is not possible to keep "growing" in a finite world. But our government continually claims that the "economy" is growing, albeit slowly, which is only another numbers game. When does this "growth" end? Shall the USA become like India? What will India be like by then? Shall every person have his five square feet of space, and receive his daily meal from a government machine?

The real problem here is that we already have too many people in the US and yet there are people who say we need more. Those people think that infinite growth is possible because money is just a numbers game. They don't seem to understand that economic realities are much different than economic numbers.

Too many people in the U.S.?
You need to get off the coasts and travel to Montana or the Dakotas. Then maybe go to Wyoming or Nebraska. A lot of the U.S. is completely empty, not to mention Canada.

You are really confused and need to get out more.

A lot of the US is completely empty. And therefore, what? Those lands need to be filled with people?

We have been filling up this continent for over 400 years. You have a problem with that?

Yep. It's time to stop, in my opinion.

You several posts have laid out the recipe for societal and environmental disaster for my country. I suppose it is your country, too. I want to thank you for the way you have made it so clear.

From the CBO's website:
"Interest payments on that debt represent a large and rapidly growing expense of the federal government. CBO’s baseline shows net interest payments more than tripling under current law, climbing from $231 billion in 2014, or 1.3 percent of GDP, to $799 billion in 2024, or 3.0 percent of GDP—the highest ratio since 1996. The rising debt accounts for some of that increase, but much of it stems from CBO’s expectation that—largely owing to the improving economy—the average interest rate paid on that debt will more than double over the next 10 years, from 1.8 percent in 2014 to 3.9 percent in 2024."
And this is based on today's historically/astronomically LOW interest rates which if were to rise to simply "normal" levels, would cause the interest on that debt to surpass even the militaries normal baseline budget.......let me say that again, not the repayment of the debt, but the INTEREST payments alone would surpass our military budget.

From the White House budgetary figures:
"By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations. (The largest part of the budget is, and will remain, the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mandatory spending is over $2 trillion and is set to double to $4 trillion by 2025.)"........yep, I'm fear mongering.

Interest on the debt has NEVER exceeded 3.2% of GDP even during the extremely high interest years of the Reagan presidency. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

If we ever got back to normal economic growth, the deficit would fall naturally as tax revenues increased. Most of the government spending is just transfers to senior citizens via Social Security. So they have more money and others have less. You could do the same thing through taxes.

But the fact remains that our debt has NEVER hurt us in the 80+ years since we abandoned the gold standard for our money. We can print all we need so we will never default.

When we return to normal economic growth!! And just how is that going to happen when almost $300 billion dollars of capitol is being stolen from tax paying citizens and squandered on paying interest on the debt, and since we are surviving on a service sector, minium wage economy I don't see that happening any time soon. So let me see if I can tell where you're coming from, the debt is "manageable", we don't have to worry because the economy is surely going to grow, and its perfectly acceptable for us to burden future generations with debt just as long as we can pretend we have prosperity today......got it, thanks Paul Krugman.

Growth comes from demand - spending by consumers, foreigners buying our exports and government. In the current recovery, consumers have been the only real spenders and that is why it has been weak.

If the U.S. government increased its spending, businesses would expand investment and hire more workers. There is NO shortage of money in the economy as shown by the extremely low interest rates. But the government won't spend money because of fear mongering about the debt.

Future generations will need roads, schools, airports, parks, etc. We should be building all those things right now but you cons would rather see America fall to ruin. Why do you hate America?

How is the debt going up (subject of the article) if the government is not spending money because of "fear-mongering".

Seriously, Paul, you are repeating the same old economic theories that have got us to this point. This is why we are a "service economy" and not, any more, a manufacturing power. We have had our population grow by 100 million in the last 50 years and we have not had a positive balance of trade since 1974. We allow corporations to send jobs to other countries, and at the same time allow people to come to the US, even illegally, because we "need" them. They are your consumers. And like the rest of the working US population, they haven't got a whole lot of money to spend.

Real manufacturing output in the U.S. is near its peak and will soon surpass it. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

As the graph shows clearly, manufacturing was severely damaged during the George W. Bush presidency by his stupid economic policies. Pres. Obama has brought manufacturing back from the dead.

What happens if we borrow and spend to build roads and bridges that aren't needed in the future, what if we borrow and spend ourselves into oblivion producing items and gismos no one wants or needs. You should to read "The Broken Window Fallacy" it might help you understand economic failures produced by government spending.....I believe Krugman even suggested planning and producing to boast our GDP, based on a future alien attack.
And on a side note what do you think happens to an economy when demographics change suddenly, say over the course of 10 years, when 1/4 of the citizens of that country reach a certain age and they no longer need to borrow and spend, no longer need to work to sustain nor maintain a growing family, no longer pay income tax and instead start to rely on funds that the government said they were going to set aside for them? Do you think that might have an effect on that nations economy?

What if we borrow and spend a trillion dollars to invade Iraq or Vietnam, achieve nothing and go home empty handed? Well, nothing much happened did it? We didn't go bankrupt or suffer terrible inflation even though we are still paying for those wars in terms of veterans' benefits, just like we are still paying for WW2 and Korea.

Instead of spending trillions on foreign wars, why not spend money at home building up America? Why is that a waste of money when foreign wars are not a waste?

As to Social Security, baby boomers have money to spend and they are spending it. As Keynes said: "Consumption — to repeat the obvious — is the sole end and object of all economic activity.” And Adam Smith agreed with him: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.” The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, v. ii, p. 660, para. 49.

And no we didn't come home empty handed, as with the broken window theory as unneccessay as those wars may have been they created a boon for our manufacturing and consumer spending that is systemic to the growing GDP that government borrowing and spending brings, and it helped our military spread US dollar around the world, and through it all we were still adding to the national debt to fund it. And in the end we now have a new trading partner in Vietnam......pay attention Krugman.

So let me get this straight, you proclaim that government is doing a great job and that if/when we return to a normal economy the debt will simply disappear. If that's the case you're making then why, after 8 successive summers of recovery, after record highs in the stock market, and with 4.9 unemployment why are people not spending, and why oh why is the government still borrowing over a trillion of dollars a year...... there's something wrong with the picture you're painting.

The government is not doing a great job because it refuses to borrow money to spend on infrastructure, the military, education and many other obvious needs. OTOH, Congress is completely ok borrowing money to spend on wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or anywhere else they want to go.

Our biggest problem is lack of investment by businesses because of lack of demand by government. If the federal government would spend money at home instead of on foreign wars, businesses would invest to meet that demand and hire more workers.

Obviously, people like you deliberately ignore the needs of America in favor of your own selfish agenda. Why do you hate America?

They can't provide "shovel ready jobs" because they are borrowing and spending on numerous other welfare costs and "subsidies". And again, as if I need to repeat myself, a huge portion of the money being spent is paying for the interest on the debt they have already accumulated. And besides they were never meant to be a charity, or a venture capitol group.....they don't have the knowledge or experience, and their administrative costs are way to high.

"They don't have the knowledge or experience, and their administrative costs are way to high."

So the landings on the moon never happened and the robots we now have on Mars are fakes too. The Interstate Highway System doesn't exist and Hoover Dam is just an illusion. Our national parks are a total waste of money, but the war in Iraq was great!

Do you ever actually have a thought in your head or do you just watch Fox Noise all day?

And you think government did that without any help from intelligent and visionary individuals? You're a helpless group think zombie, and that is putting it mildly.

You are just an anti-government fanatic like most cons.

Our government - "of the people, by the people and for the people" as Lincoln said - means nothing to you and you think it is worthless. Why do you hate America?

More words from the man you love to hate, or is it hate to love:
"The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents - #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic." - Barak H. Obama

The debt now stands at over $19.5 trillion, how unpatriotic......why does the President hate America?

Obama was wrong about the debt, duh.

But he was right about the politics of the debt because everyone in Washington loves to pontificate about the evils of debt. OTOH, when there is a war to fight somewhere, they all rush to spend billions as fast as possible and the debt is never a problem.

“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.” - Abraham Lincoln......... you're right, this guy was way smarter than Obama.

The Fed is doing exactly what Lincoln said: creating money to support the government and the economy. And when the Fed buys U.S. Treasury bonds, as it does by the trillions of dollars, all the interest due is refunded to the Treasury so the "loan" is interest free. There simply is no cost to taxpayers.

Are you completely nuts?! There is interest on that debt, hence the over $300 billion dollars in interest payments being added to that continually rising national debt. Only a partial amount is "returned" to the government after the Fed Res skims their administrative fees of the top, and even then no one knows that exact amount because they have never been thoroughly audited, accept from what they show the government during their chartered meetings.
The proper and Constitutional way to run the system is as Lincoln suggested, let the Treasury take back the responsibility of creating the nations currency and eliminate the Fed Res cartel control over this countries money supply.....and if the government would like to make some profit from this exchange they could assign a fixed rate of say 5% instead of raising and lowering it like a balloon every decade or so, which causes instability in the market and wild swings of inflation/deflation.

"To cause high prices, all the Federal Reserve Board will do will be to lower the rediscount rate..., producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market; then when ... business men are adjusted to these conditions, it can check ... prosperity in mid career by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest. It can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by a greater rate variation and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down. This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money. They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage, They also know when to stop panic. Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control finance." — Charles Lindbergh Sr.

Interest on the debt as a percent of our national income (GDP) is the lowest in 40 years at 1.2% https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

We can easily afford it just as we did when it was twice as much during the Reagan presidency. You cons never complained about it back then. Gee I wonder why?

Interest on the debt is not a problem now and never has been, so your fear mongering is just BS and you know it.

Maybe because the debt incurred during that period actually showed some economic benefits, we had one of the greatest economic booms back when wages were high and inflation was low, when one could afford to purchase a home at 14% interest and a new car at 20% interest and one income could provide for it all, and I should know, I did it. Reagan added $1.86 trillion to the national debt, and it improved the lives of millions of Americans, where as Obama has added over $9 trillion and all we have to show for it is a larger welfare state and the largest homeless population in over 60 years......and even Keynes realized that in order for increased government borrowing/spending to spur economic growth that the nation borrowing that money would need a manufacturing/industrial base to create the wealth needed in order to repay that loan, it can't be done with a service sector economy built around consuming products from other countries.
Hey Krugman, do a web search on "the national debt" and you'll be astonished to find most people have a very big problem with the ever increasing interest payments on that debt, everyone except you, and you've been wrong on almost every call you've made......you and Obama need to return those Noble Prizes.

Thanks for all the con propaganda. If I watched only Fox Noise, I might actually believe your BS.

Real (inflation adjusted) median wages are MUCH higher now than during the Reagan years. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Inflation is MUCH lower. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Reagan TRIPLED the national debt; Obama has not even doubled it. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Real manufacturing output is near its all time high and more than double the Reagan years. https://fred.stlouisfed.org...

Keynes never talked about repaying the national debt. In fact, he realized it was very dangerous to do that: “a change-over from a policy of Government borrowing to the opposite policy of providing sinking funds (for paying off the principal of a debt) is capable of causing a severe contraction of effective demand.” The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, p. 95.

Why would anyone have a problem with interest payments on the debt which are at a 40 year low? Oh wait, I know the answer: fear mongering about the interest is the only way you cons can scare people about the debt.

The fact is that interest on the debt is NEGATIVE now that inflation is above 1.2%. Even a clown like you can figure that one out.

Talk about propaganda, you do realize that the interest is compounded based upon the amount borrowed, Reagan borrowed in the billions, Obama has borrowed in the TRILLIONS, now get out your calculator and see if your pea sized brain can find the diffence between those two amounts......talk about a clown, you win the Bozo award.