The defense I've seen for keeping a national debt was by a Wall street bond trader who looked horrified at the prospect.
However, we are now at the stage of virtually unlimited ability to craft together combined instruments of collective debt and safety across a broad portion of the many trillions of $$-worth of private companies, to supply the need for parking safe funds. And there's nothing saying feds can't guarantee x trillions, like they already do for FNMA.
The one thing choking the old-timers is the gold-standard role of federal debt, the only superpower nuclear-capable debt there is.
But once it's needed, a replacement will, I am absolutely certain, be found. A super-bond, etc. When I briefly played in the international money game, the game was to invest in "world prime banks" of a selected caliber, etc etc. There's no limit to how secure you can make it relative to the economic universe.
After all, FNMA and such are backed by the feds.
It's a non-problem.
Getting rid of fed debt increases flexibility, reduces economic drag, makes private debt cheaper, scares our enemies, makes people more optimistic, and probably even cures cancer.... And probably is as likely to happen.
Also, a bit of Enron-honesty in government accounting will show about $22 TRILLION IN UNFUNDED DEBT including little things like fed pensions. Any debt reduction is good debt reduction, IMO. I don't see the problem. |
