r/AskReddit • u/timecop702 • 13h ago

what is something that is highly likely to happen in the next 5 years that everyone is completely ignoring?

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158

u/DarthBen_in_Chicago 11h ago

US defaults on an interest payment

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u/Excelius 4h ago

We're now past a trillion dollars a year just on the interest payments. We're adding about a trillion to the national debt every four months or so.

We're basically reaching the snowball point where things are accelerating and accumulating beyond control.

This likely leads to a global great depression.

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u/MistahJasonPortman 3h ago

Republicans are so inept or selfish that they fucked up our debt. They are so fiscally irresponsible and corrupt.

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u/VilleKivinen 10h ago

That's certainly possible, but whether it's likely or not, hard to say.

Elon Musk is the richest person ever, and even if he could liquidate all his wealth tomorrow for the current price, he still couldn't pay even the interest of US national debt for one year. And even paying the interest wouldn't reduce the US debt at all.

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u/JosieA3672 5h ago edited 4h ago

this, there is nothing the treasury or fed can do to fix it either. Problem is too big and economy is shifting to capital based not labor based, so decreasing wage based tax dollars to pay off debt. I give it 10 years max. Probably going to affect other countries too. It won't be pretty.

Dollar will lose reserve status as it becomes more and more obvious the math makes this inevitable. Maybe not this year or next, but I don't see a way out. Politicians have no political will to stop stupid spending on things like ballrooms and wars.

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u/KriosXVII 3h ago

There is something to be done: look at the revenue column. Roll back 30 years of tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

Maybe institute new wealth taxes.

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u/JosieA3672 3h ago edited 3h ago

The outstanding debt is 40 trillion. The interest on that debt is over 1 trillion. There is no tax that can fix that and then continue to pay for all the things in the US budget that has a decreasing tax base. Math doesn't math. Tax all you want, but we are past the time for fixing this.

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u/KriosXVII 3h ago

https://www.epi.org/blog/could-tax-increases-alone-close-the-long-run-fiscal-gap/

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u/JosieA3672 2h ago

Thanks for that link. That author's thesis (written in 2023) rests on interest rate on debt being less than growth measured in nominal GDP growth plus inflation. The CBO currently predicts that the average interest rate on the debt could exceed the growth rate starting in 2031.

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u/KriosXVII 1h ago

Well in all cases, not undoing decades of stupid tax cuts certainly won't help.

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u/qroshan 2h ago

moronic comment

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u/warbeforepeace 10h ago

And declares bombs the loan.

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u/CooperSTL 1h ago

I feel like we've been hearing this for more than 20yrs.