Your Nation's National Debt: 5 Things You Need to Know

Money For the Rest of Us

J. David Stein

Investing, Investing Podcast, Business, Economics, Economy

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We analyze the worrisome national debt situation in the U.S., UK, and Japan and consider what will determine the likelihood of default

Topics covered include:

How big is the national debt in the U.S., UK, and Japan
Why Japan and UK interest rates have increased
When do federal government debts jump the most
What two numbers are key to whether a level of national debt is sustainable
What are five ways indebted countries have reduced the relative size of their debt
Why quantitative easing is not a solution to a national debt crisis

For more information on this episode click here.

Sponsors

Shopify

Fundrise

Show Notes

Debt to the Penny—U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data

Federal Debt and the Debt Limit in 2022—Congressional Research Service

Can the Central Bank Alleviate Fiscal Burdens? by Ricardo Reis—London School of Economics and Political Science

UK government debt and deficit: June 2022—Office for National Statistics

Japan's Experience with Yield Curve Control by Matthew Higgins and Thomas Klitgaard—Liberty Street Economics

What is the national debt?—U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data

Major Foreign Holder of Treasury Securities—Treasury International Capital System, U.S. Treasury

The Liquidation of Government Debt by Carmen M. Reinhart and M. Belen Sbrancia—International Monetary Fund

Related Episodes

295: Federal Reserve Insolvency and Monetizing the National Debt

338: The National Debt, Inflation, and the U.S. Dollar—What Could Go Wrong?

360: Will the U.S. Default? Debt Ceilings, Government Shutdowns, and the National Debt

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Money for the Rest of Us. This is a personal financial show on money, how it works,
0:05.9	how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it. I'm your host David Stein,
0:11.1	today is episode 416. It's titled Your Nation's National Debt. Five things you need to know.
0:20.0	Since 2014, we have released 10 episodes on Federal Government National Debt. The last time we
0:26.9	looked at the topic in Debt was episode 360 in September 2021. We do a lot of episodes on debt,
0:34.4	national debt, because I'm still learning about it. My views on national debt have changed
0:41.7	moderately over the years as I become more worried about it as I have come to better understand
0:47.9	government finances, central bank finances. And so I thought it would be helpful to review some
0:55.6	very important principles when it comes to the national debt, because the national debt
1:01.7	consists of government bonds that different governments issue, but most of us actually own some of
1:09.2	that debt. The government's debt is our asset. We're receiving interest income and we want to make
1:15.5	sure that we get paid back. We also should be very tuned in to what is going on with the national
1:21.2	debt, because the interest rate on that debt can influence the interest rate we pay to borrow,
1:28.0	to buy a house for a mortgage, or to borrow it for a car, because the government interest rate is
1:34.9	sort of the baseline and then other borrowings are referenced off what the government is paying for
1:41.9	debt. And so these are important concepts. A lot has happened since September 2021 when we last
1:50.7	looked at this. For example, the US national debt is $3 trillion higher, approaching $31.4 trillion,
1:59.9	which is very close to the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling in the US is the maximum level of
2:06.0	government bonds. The US Treasury has been authorized by Congress to issue. That debt ceiling will
2:13.2	need to be raised this year and it's setting up to be a big political fight. Another thing that has
2:19.8	occurred is last fall in the UK, the market reaction to the chancellor's spending proposal and
2:25.7	tax cut was absolutely brutal. Interest rates spiked and the British pound sterling fell to an
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from J. David Stein, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of J. David Stein and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.