There are three choices facing the US Government with respect to the debt.
1). Default on the debt.
2). Pass and live with annual federal budgets that create surpluses and start paying back the debt.
3) Inflation resulting from money printing ultimate resulting in a worthless currency.
The government has chosen #3 because the economic pain grows slow over the years until it kills the economic system. Like the frog in a pot of water slowly increasing in temperature. The frog does’t feel it a first but one day the frog dies when the water gets too hot.
Neither political party in Congress has the desire or will to bring spending in line with revenue despite the fact both sides are aware government wastes billions of dollars, if not trillions per year. DOGE was the canary in the coal mine. It got off to a good start but was dead within a year.
Eventually #1 or #3 will occur and the American will experience living in a third world economy.
Not that I disagree, but what will the rest of the world live in?
It seems like it will be less for everyone but the self-styled Elites - exactly what they want.
The members of both houses of Congress think only of themselves. Their sole objective is to get theirs while the getting’s good, as fast as possible, and to hell with the American people, and even their own descendants. AOC is now a millionaire. How is that possible?.....................
4) value the gold at Fort Knox at the current ~$4,000 ‘oz up from the current valuation of merely $40/oz
We’re already living in a 3rd world economy. Balance of payments went negative in the 1970s, wages stagnating since the 1970s, etc etc.
The debt will never be repaid, and it was never really intended to be. It’s a moot point now, because of the size.
What isn’t moot, the government must make timely interest payments on that debt. Every bit of the 40 Trillions of dollars rolls over every 4 years or so. They can save the dollar, or save the markets, but they can’t save both.
This is always the problem, money is the unit of account. If the underlying unit of account is undefined, there will be problems. Maybe it doesn’t have to defined in terms of gold, but there has to be something that can be used as a standard.
Even nominal conservatives start screeching at such suggestions when this is pointed out.
We have astonishingly accurate definitions of time, weights, measures, atomic particles, everything. Though not when it comes to money. Just nominal numbers, or a piece of paper with a picture of a dead guy on it. Weird, huh?
“The Meter lost several centimeters against the Yard in heavy measuring yesterday…”. We don’t allow such jiggery-pokery when it comes to measuring anything else.