Thread by @HNIJohnMiller

1) Fine, I'm doing this. I'm annoyed and peeved and goddamnit I'm doing this now.

I'm going to try to calm myself down in the next 5 seconds to do it in a funnier 'free yourself from the Matrix' theme for this, but THIS MOTHER FUCKER RIGHT HERE IS PISSING ME OFF.

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2) First off, what is our national debt. As in, what form does it take. These are bonds, securities, etc, which are sold through the @USTreasury.

3) Obviously, these are IOUs from the US Federal Government. These are the basic building blocks of our debt. The more securities out there, the more our debt is, and when funds need to be raised more are sold, and people buy them because they trust in our country's stability

4) I'm baby-stepping this because I am going to fucking #blockchain any goddamn goldbugs, bitbugs, Rothschild-obsessed jackasses, or anyone else that tries to fucking fight me on this. So, I'm leaving NOTHING to assumption. We're going Economics 101 on this fucking shitshow.

5) We have several things going for us that makes people trust our IOUs, which is what I'll refer all bonds/securities/notes/etc as at this point.

6) First, we are the largest economy in the world. No debate. China's the next largest, and their GDP is LESS THAN HALF of ours. The US economy literally makes up a quarter of the entire freaking world, and that's AFTER we've been kneecapped for decades. It SHOULD be 1/3.

7) What this means for our IOUs is what I call the doomsday fallacy. The day that our country is suddenly unable to pay our debt, the world is probably fucked anyways. It will take a goddamn economic apocalypse to keep us from paying our debt. If that occurs then who cares?

8) (sorry for the delete/retweet, grammatical error, I couldn't let it go) The second thing going for our IOUs is that the existing debt is being spread out over DECADES. Seriously, I'm talking 3, 4 decades at times.

9) "Oh, we couldn't pay our debt back immediately if we tried!" We're not going to try numbnuts. These IOUs specifically have a maturity rate; if someone tries to cash them in early, they get back LESS than what the IOU is worth.

10) So yeah. Crazy fucking hypothetical scenario, everyone tries to cash in their IOUs at once, each one is worth a FRACTION of what it would be if they had waited until they matured. So THAT won't happen.

11) The third thing going is our inflation rate. The Federal Reserve tries to keep our inflation rate down to around 2%/year, give or take. If its high or low one year outside of a margin of error, the Federal Reserve will adjust accordingly.

12) Now, the IOUs have an interest rate, how much their value will grow if the IOUs are held to maturity. If the inflation rate ends up HIGHER than the interest, then it actually knocks some value off the IOU, effectively lowering our debt.

13) This PRIMARILY effects longer-term IOUs, the ones that span into the decades I mentioned before. So why do people buy them? Because they trust that the country will still EXIST in 30 years, and so they know for a fact that there is a guaranteed value for these IOUs.

14) Again, it is the doomsday fallacy I mentioned. If some apocalyptic scenario occurs that the United States isn't around in 30 years to pay back these IOUs, chances are we're fucked anyways and won't care that the IOUs are worthless.

15) Alright, so we've got the what the debt is and why the debt is considered valuable to others covered. How much is our current debt? As of 2017, $20.244 trillion. statista.com/statistics/187…

16) You're thinking:

17) What if I were to tell you... that number is VERY deceptive. (Boom, back in Morpheus mode bitches.)

18) The answer may surprise you. This is the green pill you're swallowing. thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u…

19) $5.6 trillion, aka over 1/4 of the total debt, is held by local and state governments and federal agencies in the United States. When they take in more revenue from taxes/budgeting than they spent, they put the excess in IOUs so that the federal government can redistribute it

20) The amount held by foreign entities? $6 trillion. China owns the most of THIS, but their holdings still are merely a small fraction of the total.

21) The federal reserve? $2 trillion, the largest individual holder. They use our IOUs as one way to manage the inflation rate. They buy IOUs, and the money supply in circulation increases, increasing inflation. Sell the IOUs they hold, and it decreases, decreasing inflation

22) If the IOUs mature while the Federal Reserve is holding them? They give the money right back to the federal government, minus operating expenses. That's by law. The Federal Reserve does not make money off of US debt.

23) The rest? Held by banks, mutual funds, pension funds, etc. All domestic. See, between government and private groups, we own about 3/4 of our own debt. Anyone saying we're indebting our children is speaking out their ass. We are mostly indebted TO OURSELVES.

24) And WHY do we hold this debt to ourselves? Again, the doomsday fallacy. If suddenly our own government isn't able to pay us back for all this debt one day, we have FAR larger problems than these IOUs and are probably all screwed anyways.

25) We hold this debt because while chances are we will probably LOSE money on these longer-term IOUs, they have a guaranteed value, and make GREAT assets to be used as collateral or to beef up an organizations balance sheet, or to offset risks when investing.

26) Take mutual funds. They have to invest all of the money in them in SOMETHING. So they do their strategic investments targeting whatever level of value growth they want, but they have some left over or at least need to hedge their bet in case of a disaster in the markets.

27) Boom, some US government IOUs that are guaranteed to be worth X in however long. If some disaster happens, the mutual fund is still holding onto the money it needs to keep going, so it cashes in the IOUs and keeps on keeping on.

28) The system is STABLE. If there DOES become a debt problem, the Federal Reserve will print enough money to buy up the problematic amount of debt, inflation will increase for a time, it'll decrease for a time after to stabilize, then things will continue on as normal.

29) How do I know this? BECAUSE IT ALREADY HAPPENED. It happened, and NO ONE noticed.

30) All the people telling you that we have a looming crisis seem to forgot that we HAD a crisis, we fixed it, and we moved on. statista.com/statistics/244… Quantitative easing. We started in 2008, picked up steam in late 2010 early 2011 then the inflation rate increased in 2011 by 1%

21) Then it ended, the Federal Reserve compensated, and by 2015 we hit .12% inflation total, as the Federal Reserve sold back the IOUs and other assets it was holding.

32) The crisis happened, it passed, and NO ONE NOTICED.

33) All these people trying to sell you on fear? They won't tell you, or are too fucking stupid to know, that the crisis they're using to scare you already happened and passed without fanfare.

34) I'm not going to scare you. I am going to get pissed. I am going to get pissed for you, because people are lying to you and trying to scare you. Fuck fear. Burn your fear. /end