

The Man Who Sells America’s I.O.U.’s  - Maven911
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/economy/24debt.html?em

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Aschwin
In terms of real money, there is no money to pay the debt. The banknotes are
just debt to pay another debt. It's backed by trust in a good future and a lot
of promises of the working horde. But.... what if the crowd can't cope with it
anymore? We can't predict the future and sure we can't predict mistakes made
by banks or other investors. We can't let the people pay for these mistakes
continuely, because the promises aren't built upon that. As long as there is
no way to deal with these 'errors', there is no real way to predict investment
either. Injecting 'money' (more debt) is not a cure nor a surety.

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nopassrecover
Interesting story but is this the biggest case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Your best hope is that by the time your bond matures someone else will
"invest" to cover you but what happens if they finally reach a point where
they can't borrow enough to pay their existing obligations?

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jedc
It's more like procrastination... why pay today what could be put off to
tomorrow?

Regarding your second point, the situation isn't hopeless. The graph with the
article shows that it is possible to reduce the national debt, both in real
terms and as a percentage of GDP.

