Imagine: a quantity of a material thing whose sheer enormity can only be visualized abstractly. To us, visualizing a large sum is quite difficult if we cannot physically see it or feel how exactly that large sum of something is directly affecting us. Imagine being on a small island, and every so often you receive an airdrop of dogs for company. At first, you start out with one, then three, then three thousand- all of a sudden, this visual of three thousand dogs is unfathomable. Now, imagine if there were 21 trillion dogs on this small island with you and continue to be airdropped from the sky at exponential speeds. If the impact of 21 trillion dogs with you on a small island seems rather intimidating and a little claustrophobic, then why doesn’t the U.S. National debt, totaling generously over 21 trillion dollars, have the same suffocating effect on us as 21 trillion air-dropped dogs? Well, dogs aren’t dollars, but dollars are easier to sweep under the rug than dogs.
The legacies left behind by our Founding Fathers have been significant in their impact on our daily lives, but none other stands out more prominently than their decision to acquire a National debt. David Kestenbaum discusses this approach in the NPR podcast, “When the U.S Paid Off the National Debt.” He stated that when the U.S. began to lay down its economic foundations after the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers decided to not pay off the massive debts accrued during the war. Ultimately, they decided that accruing these debts would essentially act as a springboard to economic stability, almost considering the debt as an investment by the people for a better country through bond issuance.
Through the years, these debts accrued, ushering a wave of good, luxurious living for the Boomers with little to no regard for future generations. Without going into too much of what these expenditures actually, were, although luxurious and unnecessary indeed, the discourse between newer generations and older generations grow as the rhetoric of the Boomers is the equivalent of a sex-deprived incel blaming women for not having sex with them. The root of the problem lies within, a sort of deep introspection of what was, is, or will be in control to decide for a better future for all, yet doing nothing about it (or complaining about Millenial work ethic...the irony is strong with this one).
As these debts accrue, “debt used to fuel consumption only presents advantages to the current generation” and not the future generations.
Debts accrued by the government and useless consumer spending are not wholly bad; however, when the debts accrued no longer serve to better the long-term wellness of the nation and its future generations, it starts to become a rather large moral dilemma by both consumers and the U.S government.
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