[1rudeboy]

If the money is devalued and people earn less of it, that translates into an efective multiplying of our debt load because it then takes longer to pay it down.

Oh really? Wouldn't the debt be, devalued? If you loan me $100, and I devalue the dollar by half, then I simply need to pay you the equivalent of $50 to clear the book. No one but you thinks that the $100 debt magically expands to $200.

[Havoc]

Bunk.

If my personal debt is $5000 and I go from earning 30k a year to 11k a year, my debt is still 5k. You can devalue the dollar and it is still 5k. The only thing that has changed is my ability to pay. Do you guys think about this stuff at all. Ask any average American put out of work by this crap if their debt load decreased as a result of their drop in pay. Who in hell are you trying to kid and who do you think your kidding!!!

[XBob]

So, you want what happened to Russia, to happen here.

Great - devalue the dollar to make it worth 2cents, and then you don't have to pay it back, and no one will loan your money, and what money you have won't buy anything.

Dumb Dumb Dumb

[ARCADIA]

If you loan me $100, and I devalue the dollar by half, then I simply need to pay you the equivalent of $50 to clear the book.

That will only hold true so long as you have the market demand to adjust your wages for inflation. Otherwise you will still owe $100, you will earn the same, however imported goods (especially fuel) will cost 200% as much. You will have fewer disposable dollars with which to chase your debt.

If we really screw it up the US economy will lack the strength to maintain its GDP; so you may find yourself out of a job rather then getting debt relief. Free traders will tell us that additional manufacturing will be attracted by the lower dollars; but, that presumes that you have an expandable manufacturing base. As we have seen with Argentina and Mexico, currency devaluation does not always result in a manufacturing boom. No one wants to invest into an unstable political mess.