TIL the US national debt was only $427m in 1972

naively assumed the increase started a longer time ago

bubbles and the end of stagnation by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber

Where is this from? When I look at FRED data I see 460k (millions of dollars) at the end of 1972

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i agree, it's impressive how the USA has been able to use their national debt for growth. 

just assumed the increase in national debt started ealier

my understanding, not to take away from this fact but in general i would say people like to use the national debt as a boogy man since debt = bad in avg person eyes but it's not the same since we print our own money. not saying infinite debt is fine but as long as our means of production and infrastructure are not shrinking at the same time,  national debt ≠ bad economy;  it's investment in the economy mostly. (if you're just borrowing and not building it's bad)

Helping build @midao. Probably on the water if I’m not thinking about crypto. /eagles /betting /off-grid

yup i wasn't trying to say that the debt is necessarily bad, just surprised that the big increase didn't happen earlier

I think as long as the US has the best defense arsenal in the world then debt is okay (within reason)(a lot of government spending goes to defense). 

As soon as countries stop pegging their currency to the dollar then everything becomes much less stable. 

Conclusion: if US wasn’t a defense superpower - less countries would peg to dollar - spending wouldn’t make sense.