this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
-7 points (37.0% liked)

Personal Finance

3748 readers
3 users here now

Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!

Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Prices of things are becoming absolutely insane. $800+ rent, $30,000 cars, $10 sub sandwiches, etc. It would be nice to do a 3/1 split and cut everything by 2/3. Then we would have $266 rent, $10,000 cars, and $3.33 sub sandwiches. Wages, debts, everything would drop to 1/3 what they are now. It would also make coins useful again since a vending machine soda would be 2 quarters again.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think I read somewhere that the debt to GDP ratio was something like 150% currently.

[–] urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, I failed to finish my whole thought there.

Debt to gdp ratio is probably pretty average in comparison to other nations (admittedly this is a figure I have not looked up in a while). The yardstick we should use to measure how bad our debts are should be other economies. Government debt is nothing like the debt of private citizens.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I haven't looked up what other countries debt to GDP ratios are, but if they are similar, at say, 150% then won't we just end up in a scenario where the entire world crashes and burns and the average citizens all over the world are put out onto the streets? To my knowledge, the crazy circus can't go on forever.

[–] urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No, that only happens if countries stop being able to make good on their loans. To my knowledge most USA debt is owned by USA citizens and corporations in the form of bonds. Nations aren’t just loaning each ofher money they don’t have.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But the United States is getting to a point where they will not be able to make good on their loans unless they print more money, which will then cause inflation and make the dollars they repay the loan with worth less to the person/company/country who made the loan. We already pay more on our debt than we spend on the military and considering the US cannot stay out of other people's business, that's saying something.

[–] urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But the United States is getting to a point where they will not be able to make good on their loans unless they print more money,

I’m sorry but to convince me you’d have to find a VERY good source for that claim. Government bonds are the safest bet in the game for a reason. The situation you’re describing would be a global collapse of most economies.

Anyway, you seem very interested in this topic, I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, but I think that wraps this conversation up for me.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago

I do find it to be a very interesting topic, and you were a great discussion partner.