A metric a lot of things experts tend to rely on is the debt-to-GDP ratio. The idea being that you can have an insane debt, but if your economic output is also insane, you’ll be able to pay it off easier than a lesser economy. The US’ is currently at 120%-ish as of earlier this year. Notable examples to pull from seem to be Greece, and how they defaulted from their debt spiral after failing a repayment (ratio: 180%), and Japan, which I believe currently holds the largest Debt-to-GDP ratio (238%-ish).
Edit: interjecting my thoughts that nobody asked for, is that debt seems like a weird unknown in the economic media I see. Like, growing a significant debt is bad, but it oftentimes is used on infrastructure that you can’t just un-build, like what you can with a debt. When a country that did so defaults, I know there’s studies into it, but it almost seems terribly underreported on. So much so that I can’t say I’d know how things will unfold, especially with an economy of the US’ importance.
Edit: also yeah, I’m saying the included image/article/whatever in the post is wrong. We surpassed that in 2013.
A metric a lot of things experts tend to rely on is the debt-to-GDP ratio. The idea being that you can have an insane debt, but if your economic output is also insane, you’ll be able to pay it off easier than a lesser economy. The US’ is currently at 120%-ish as of earlier this year. Notable examples to pull from seem to be Greece, and how they defaulted from their debt spiral after failing a repayment (ratio: 180%), and Japan, which I believe currently holds the largest Debt-to-GDP ratio (238%-ish).
Edit: interjecting my thoughts that nobody asked for, is that debt seems like a weird unknown in the economic media I see. Like, growing a significant debt is bad, but it oftentimes is used on infrastructure that you can’t just un-build, like what you can with a debt. When a country that did so defaults, I know there’s studies into it, but it almost seems terribly underreported on. So much so that I can’t say I’d know how things will unfold, especially with an economy of the US’ importance.
Edit: also yeah, I’m saying the included image/article/whatever in the post is wrong. We surpassed that in 2013.
You can have insane debt. But if your economic output is also insane, you are insane.