politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
If the USA can't pay it's debts, we can't trade. Everyone should care about the national debt. It's not coming out of the billionaires' bank accounts, and multinational corporations will simply do business elsewhere. We don't have the infrastructure to produce internally, and if our credit score degrades enough, we won't be able to build it, either.
Yeah, you don’t understand money.
Then explain it to me.
You’re the one who said “if we can’t pay our debts we can’t trade.” That’s nonsense on its face. You need to explain that to me.
Meanwhile, I’ll waste cycles attempting to explain modern monetary theory on a phone keyboard.
Fiat currency is just numbers. Ones and zeros. The Fed(eral Reserve) can simply type these numbers into existence. That’s where the currency comes from. China can buy treasuries, but in a fiat system it’s unnecessary. Money comes from The Fed. The government could close the bond window tomorrow and it would just mean China would put its money in a bank account. Or, you know, spend it on things sold in dollars. Which is what currency issuance for.
Treasuries are a relic of the gold standard when currency was federally required to be tied to some quantity of shiny rocks. It was discarded because it artificially constrained monetary policy. E.g. during wars, the government couldn’t legally print currency, which is why there were all those silly war bonds.
Now the only constraint on issuing currency (really) is inflation. As we are about to find out, inflation is more than just currency issuance. Oil shocks, pandemic-induced supply chain crunches, and avian influenza outbreaks can raise inflation with any change in currency.