Questions tagged [debt]
Questions related to the accrual of debt, may it be a nation, organization or person in a political landscape. Use this tag alongside the relevant tag in the context of the question i.e. a country if necessary.
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Why is Greece's debt considered a problem but not US debt, which is much larger?
Greece's and other southern European countries' debt has been considered a problem since the 2008 crash, and austerity measures have been forced to the people.
However the United States also have a ...
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What will happen if China stops loaning money to the U.S.?
US's external debt to china is a staggering 1.1 trillion US dollars and according to many economists, it's highly unlikely that U.S. will be able to pay back the entire external debt to China in the ...
user17709
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What are the downsides of being a debt-free country (no foreign national debt)?
I was only a child when the Romanian dictator, Ceaușescu announced that all of the country's foreign debt had been paid:
Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu announced this week that his
country, ...
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Do separatist nations inherit any national debt?
Do separatist nations inherit any national debt?
For example, given Spain has a debt level of £1.1 trillion at the time of writing, if Catalonia becomes an independent nation is there any legal ...
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How is Japan able to sustain a large debt as a percentage of GDP, while Greece could not?
Japan is currently the nation with the highest debt as a percentage of GDP - at the time of writing it stands at over 250%. Greece, currently the second most indebted nation, went through a decade-...
CDJB♦
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Why are US student loans nearly impossible to remove via bankruptcy?
In the United States it is very hard to get rid of student loans. They cannot be discharged in bankruptcy except for under extenuating circumstances. I find that bizarre given how people are ...
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How does debt-trap diplomacy work?
Debt-Trap Diplomacy
In the micro world of personal loans, a person will go to a bank, and say, for example: "Here's a contract: You give me $1 million, and I'll pay it back to you on XYZ schedule ...
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Why first world countries have astonishing amount of foreign debts, but third world countries don't?
USA, for example, having a total foreign debt of over 23 trillion dollars (according to the statistics provided in 2019), is still on the frontline of those countries which are considered to be ...
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Who was the last US President to oversee a reduction in debt?
As of 2012, the United States currently has ~16 trillion in debt.
The last five presidents have all added to the overall debt*.
Who is the last US president to decrease the total amount of debt ...
user40
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Has Russia actually defaulted on its foreign debt as of April 11, 2022?
An article from CNN starts out by stating that Russia "has defaulted on its foreign debt", but then appears to qualify the statement by observing that "Moscow has a grace period of 30 ...
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Why does the United States federal government have a debt ceiling? Isn't it entirely redundant to the budget?
In the United States, the debt ceiling limits how much money the federal government can borrow. This ceiling was apparently introduced in 1939.
Why does the debt ceiling exist? Congress approves the ...
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Why does the UK government write off student loan debt after 30 years?
In the UK, if you haven't paid back student loans within 30 years they are written off. Why would the government institute such a policy? As far as I can see, it results in most people not paying back ...
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Are there any negative consequences for a country having no debt?
It would seem that having no debt would categorically be a good thing. I have heard Dave Ramsey say many times that:
The Forbes 400 is a list of the richest 400 people in America as rated by Forbes ...
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Is US Congressional spending “borrowing” money in the name of the public?
Watching the C-SPAN feed in regards to the American Rescue Plan, Rep. Tom Rice insists that we are "borrowing ~$5,500 for every man, woman, and child in [the US]."
I remind the people back ...
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What is Trump's plan to get the United States out of trillions in debt?
The debt is now close to 20 trillion dollars.
What are Trump's main strategies to reduce this debt?
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Why is it considered acceptable to freeze Russia's foreign reserves, but not acceptable for Russia to default on their debts?
Currently the following things are true:
Western countries have frozen most of Russia's foreign currency reserves
Russia is either in default or would be soon
However #1 is seen as fair and ...
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Who is lending the money for a nation's debt?
It seems most governments (certainly the US, Europe, Australia) have racked up a national debt - but who are the lenders that these governments are indebted to?
Where does the government get the ...
user6298
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Why did the U.S. government shut down, if the Fed was providing funding through the bond buying program?
I understand that the current Federal Bond Buying program ($80 billion a month) is allowing a fixed supply of money to the American Government.
If this is the case, then why did the government "shut ...
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How did the US bring down federal debt ratio after World War II?
I saw this infographic about the ballooning US Federal Debt-to-GDP ratio and how it might exceed WWII levels:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-debt-and-deficit-projections-hit-records/
But I ...
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Why do governments still assume that "the more land, the better"?
There is constant political struggle for land between two or more nations around the world, where two different countries claiming to own a land area even though another country controls (or "occupy") ...
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When a government pays centuries old debt... who exactly is it paying?
I was watching the Extra Credits series on the South Sea Bubble. In there they say that the UK is still paying off the debt from the incident. However, given how old the debt is, I have to ask: who ...
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What are the consequences if a country decides to selectively cancel debt?
(Not sure if this should be on the Economics SE; however I am interested in both economic & political consequences)
Trump threatens new tariffs on China as US mulls retaliatory action over COVID-...
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What are the overall aims of UK austerity, If the UK national debt has nearly doubled since it started?
The Opposition forced a vote for today on the end of austerity measures (not all) in regards to pay cap on public sector jobs. (The vote also includes pay rises for emergency services and the ...
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What happens if a country becomes bankrupt?
What happens to the citizens of the country? What happens to the sovereignty of the country? What happens to the neighbors?
For example, what will happen if Greece becomes bankrupt?
user4514
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Why is it considered controversial to reduce budget deficits instead of raising the debt ceiling?
Every year in the United States, there is usually a disagreement regarding the raising of the debt ceiling, which was especially noticeable in 2013 when it caused a government shutdown. Why is raising ...
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What is the theory behind using the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling?
President Biden raised a few eyebrows in that he's said he isn't ready to invoke the 14th Amendment and ignore the debt ceiling... yet. From Reuters
President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not yet ...
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What are the practical effects of having too large a debt load?
My understanding is that Japan has a debt-to-gdp ratio of approximately 200%. It is considered to be one of the worst in the world.
The United States is only in the 100% range. What effects would ...
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What is the debt ceiling and what happens if we reach it?
Over the past few years, there has been debate in congress as to whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.
My question is simple(the answer to it might not be):
What Is the debt ceiling, under what ...
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Why did Russia default on its domestic bonds in 1998 when it could simply print money?
Russia defaulted on its domestic debt in 1998. It did not have to do so because the bonds were denominated in Russian Ruble and the government could simply have printed money to pay the bonds. Why ...
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What's the purpose for a country to maintain a large public debt?
Many countries keep a national debt over 50% of their GDP every year, including first world countries. They owe each other and also to banks, companies and households.
As I understand, it wouldn't ...
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What does it mean when something is said to be "owned by taxpayers"?
There are 470,000 results on Google Search for "owned by taxpayers". Some excerpts:
RBS remains 62% owned by taxpayers after a 45 billion pound bailout in the 2008 financial crisis.
(...
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How do Democrats "gain leverage" by a three month debt limit increase?
I'm trying to understand some of the comments in the press that Democrats have gained leverage by the three-month extension tied to hurricane relief.
This is what I don't understand - it seems to me ...
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Do Western countries want for Russia to default or not on its foreign debt?
According to TASS, Russia should be able to avoid defaulting on its foreign debt because now, as opposed to 1998, it has enough financial reserves. However, the issue is that a big fraction of its ...
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Why didn't Democrats get rid of the debt ceiling while they were in power?
Since 1995, Democrats and Republicans have been in constant disagreement over the debt ceiling, with Democrats wanting to raise it and Republicans resisting their efforts. During this time, Democrats ...
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Does the treasury get to decide which parts of the budget to not fund if the debt ceiling is reached?
I am bit confused as to what the debt ceiling actually means.
From my understanding congress passes a budget that instructs the treasury to spend money on specific programs. When the debt ceiling is ...
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Implications of governments borrowing from a central bank rather than issuing money directly
Early in the history of the United States the political battle was fought between those who favored a strong central bank of the United States and others who felt the government reserved the right to ...
user117
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Why all the warnings about failure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling when some argue that Biden could just ignore it?
In this article at CNN, Robert Hockett, a law professor at Cornell University says that the debt ceiling was rooted in the 1917 Liberty Bond Act which was rendered obsolete in 1974.
Part quote from ...
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What's the most accurate account of Donald Trump's monetary debts?
The President owes some money. In 2016 Fortune estimated he owed $1.1 billion. Last December Mother Jones estimated he owed over $700 million, not including $2 billion in debt by real estate ...
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Where did all this deficit come from?
Back in 2008, the deficit was somewhere around $200 billion, until the bank bailout, which was reported at first to be a 1-time bailout of $800 billion. The next year, there was the Stimulus package, ...
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Why does Russia have such a small debt (debt to GDP ratio) compared to the vast majority of Western countries?
This chart shows that Russia has a very low debt/GDP value compared to most of the other major countries.
Quora answers indicate pure economical reasons (huge amount of natural resources and ...
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Why do US politicians spend so much on campaigns when the salary is not high enough to justify the expenditure?
Hillary Clinton spent so much on her 2008 presidential campaign that she had a campaign debt of over $30 million. The annual salary of a US president is only $400,000. Even if Hillary were successful, ...
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What prevents the U.S Congress from adopting a capital budget?
Most American states are required, by law, to balance their budgets. As a result, they do - to a large extent. The United States federal government, however, does not, and has not for many years.
...
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Is there a way to determine if a country engages in debt-trap diplomacy?
Is there a way to determine if a country engages in debt-trap diplomacy? There are people accusing China in engaging in debt-trap diplomacy, but China keeps renegotiating and cancelling debt while it ...
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Why does the US federal debt increase by more than the US deficit each year?
I was looking through the Historical Tables from the Office of Management and Budget (https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/). I noticed that each year the debt increases by a different ...
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Has any government made the unwinding of their US bonds and currency reserves a core public policy plank or a legal requirement?
The betting odds (at time of writing) on a partial US debt default this year were 6/4 - Default and 1/2 - No Default.
Considering the odds, this is something of a wake-up call for nations and ...
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Why does Berlin have debt issues in opposition to many other European capital cities?
According to this article Berlin seems to be a strange capital city when it comes to debt:
In almost every European country the capital is the engine of the
economy. But a new study shows there ...
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Why are student loan interest rates tied to inflation, not central bank interest rates?
In the UK, student loan interest rates, once studies are finished, are set as Retail Price Index (RPI) plus up to 3%. Every other variable rate of borrowing that I am aware of is tied to central bank ...
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What countries have (at some point in history) been able to significantly reduce their country's debt and what policies are generally attributed?
As we here in the US (and many others in other countries) worry about our mounting debt, I wonder if there are any historical examples of countries (including the US) which have been able to ...
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What is the point in having a debt ceiling when it can be relatively easily raised?
It makes some sense from a Machiavellian perspective; one can use the threat of a government shutdown to get concessions, but that's like playing chicken, and seems really irresponsible even if your ...
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What are the stated downsides of allowing to default on college loan debt?
There are political positions in USA who advocate that people should be able to default on college loan debt (with the status quo being that it's very hard if not impossible to do so right now).
What ...
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