As a holder of US debt, I like that it pays interest. It’s what’s so silly about all this debt stuff — we owe the money to ourselves (I mean that broadly, not that only Americans hold American debt, but that the beneficiaries of national debt are the broad base of investors and institutions that hold that debt). The debt is what we use as currency. The idea that carrying no debt is desirable is based on an analogy to a household budget, but households don’t issue fiat currency, and also households carry debt too!
Well, actually yes, countries paying down their debt is not a good thing.
But they can switch the debt into a form that doesn’t pay any interest.
As a holder of US debt, I like that it pays interest. It’s what’s so silly about all this debt stuff — we owe the money to ourselves (I mean that broadly, not that only Americans hold American debt, but that the beneficiaries of national debt are the broad base of investors and institutions that hold that debt). The debt is what we use as currency. The idea that carrying no debt is desirable is based on an analogy to a household budget, but households don’t issue fiat currency, and also households carry debt too!