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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.

-4 votes
2 answers
171 views

Why are governments allowed to take on loans knowing that their successor will need to repay them?

For example, if public polls show that a government will likely lose the next election, then it might be pretty rational for it to take on loans. A lot of them. Then, it could finance welfare spending ...
Gray Sheep's user avatar
  • 2,131
5 votes
3 answers
419 views

How could it be that the head of a Russian region asks officials to pay off debts of its residents?

As someone who has learned Russian, I read news from Russian news agencies from time to time, and one of them is TASS, a state-owned news agency, which has recently published a news article that left ...
Mitsuko's user avatar
  • 3,857
3 votes
0 answers
102 views

What happens to the national debt if a country breaks apart? [duplicate]

How does the debt get split up when a country breaks up? If, for example, Quebec were to separate from Canada, Quebec would probaly argue that it has no obligation to repay the debts to the Canadian ...
Hal's user avatar
  • 139
5 votes
0 answers
101 views

Is fiscal responsibility more difficult to practice in China since most of the spending is done by local governments? [closed]

Local government debt reached 92 trillion yuan ($12.8 trillion), or 76% of economic output in 2022, up from 62.2% in 2019. Part of it is debt issued by local government finance vehicles (LGFVs), which ...
Sayaman's user avatar
  • 45.3k
8 votes
7 answers
10k views

Does Japan have any reason to ever repay its debt?

https://fortune.com/2015/02/26/japan-economic-time-bomb/ Takatoshi Ito, an economist at Columbia’s School of International & Public Affairs, argued at a panel discussion on Monday that unless the ...
Sayaman's user avatar
  • 45.3k
1 vote
0 answers
79 views

Did China bail out its local governments in 2011?

There's this rumor-ish CNBC piece from 2011 (which is actually quoting Reuters on this part) claiming that: China’s regulators plan to shift 2-3 trillion yuan ($308-463 billion) of debt off local ...
got trolled too much this week's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
120 views

Apples-to-apples comparison of the public debt structure in the US vs. China

I'm looking for a comparison (i.e. two pie charts) of the public debt structure in the US vs. China. I can easily find data on the [hidden] municipal debt problem in China (as it's been repeatedly in ...
got trolled too much this week's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
515 views

How is China's municipal debt problem different from that of the U.S.?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-can-no-longer-extend-pretend-municipal-debt-2023-08-06/ Most economists expect Beijing to instruct state-owned banks to keep rolling over maturing debt with ...
Sayaman's user avatar
  • 45.3k
1 vote
1 answer
114 views

How do you measure debt sustainability (private and public)?

How do you measure debt sustainability (private and public)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_debt China has a lot public debt to gdp ratio. China’s debt is more than 250 ...
Sayaman's user avatar
  • 45.3k
4 votes
1 answer
185 views

US Census Survey doesn't seem to ask about most debt-- How is US Gov't getting debt info?

I just received a 2023 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, which took over an hour to fill out. The survey asked a slew of questions, in order to "give our country an up-to-...
Erin B's user avatar
  • 428
3 votes
1 answer
156 views

Can someone explain the debt ceiling clearly? [duplicate]

Now that we've gotten past the debate over raising the debt ceiling, so the world economy isn't going to hell next week, could someone explain it clearly? Most news sites describe it by analogy with a ...
Barmar's user avatar
  • 10.8k
0 votes
1 answer
228 views

social security vs debt ceiling [duplicate]

If social security funds are held in a trust fund, why would not raising the debt ceiling impact social security payments? Wouldn't the trust fund be paying the beneficiaries from its reserves? At ...
mikem's user avatar
  • 213
18 votes
2 answers
7k views

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 ...
Machavity's user avatar
  • 50.7k
3 votes
1 answer
297 views

What would happen if the US exhausts extraordinary measures, debt limit is not increased, and Treasury decides to ignore limit and issue new debt? [closed]

Treasury Secretary Yellen said this would be a "constitutional crisis". What would that entail? Would it be up to SCOTUS to tell the executive it can't do that? And then SCOTUS would what... ...
Matt Chambers's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
250 views

Does the debt ceiling have any purpose? [duplicate]

The debt ceiling was created, more or less, by mistake - a remnant of a program where the other half was ruled unconstitutional. Less debt is better than more debt, but the only thing the debt ceiling ...
SegNerd's user avatar
  • 214

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