Can the U.S. declare bankruptcy?

The U.S. debt is now about 23.3T.

It's never getting paid back.

Can the U.S. declare bankruptcy and pay 10c on a dollar?

 

yeah. But why would it do that. It would rather print more dollars.

 

I'd say when the China issue gets very bad I would do just that! Fuck them and fuck the rest of the world. What are they going to do? For decades the west and east have been taking advantage of the US.
BTW, japan's deficit percentage of their GDP is worse than the US. They can follow suit. Hell, Russia did it...I would do this and local(US) bondholders could get some tax benefits, the outside world- Fuck them.

Of course, markets would crash, all sorts of havoc would spread like wildfire but from the ashes, the cleansed US would arise like a phoenix but of course, we would have to kill all the cadres of politkos who got us in this mess in the first place, reinstate the gold standard. That would happen somehow in the midst of the calamities that followed.

 

No need to declare bankruptcy. Just have the government deficit spend and the Fed print money until the (former) 100 cents $USD is worth only 10 cents... and pay everyone with the "10 cent dollars". Of course (1) lenders will scream "your pay back dollars are worth only a dime"... upon which they will be told, "shut up... you got paid", and (2) nearly everyone in the US will be bankrupted.

Problem solved.

 

Great comments. I feel much better now.

 

It already did back in 1913 and 1933

 

By edict of the king, all durations of outstanding United States federal debt are hereby multiplied by 10. Adjust your accounting appropriately.


Point being there are many ways not involving debt cancellation, bankruptcy, or even default. Just changing terms gets the job done.

 

Moot, worm. Trump is thankfully out of office.

 

Actually, the US could pay it back. Would mean huge taxes for Americans for 10+ years though. It's no different then a mortgage on a house no need to pay it off; but growing the deficit during a strong economy ( like Trump did for 3 years ) is irresponsible. It's like giving your kids a $500K home with a $600K mortgage.

 

Trump was just extending what ever president has done.. grow government....inflation is the name of the gov game...pay the debt back with worthless diluted fiat...