alt Hacker News> You’re assuming the people in charge are sane, rationale, and value past decisions that have worked out.
No, it's an assumption that the people discussing the subject are sane and rational. It's one thing to argue that the US devaluing its wildly overvalued dollar is an effective default. Nobody would disagree with that, that's why we did it - to give us the continual option for rugpulls. But it's simply delusional and unserious to insinuate that the US won't just print paper to pay off nominal debt. It costs the US absolutely nothing.
If the US doesn't do it and defaults, it props up the value of foreign-held treasuries by giving debtors a claim, it doesn't reduce it. We happily let the presses run since 2008, running up the stock market by nearly an order of magnitude, and didn't see a drop of inflation until the last presidential term.
Also, it's extremely weird that European elites think of NATO as some kind of local government. It's simply a US-invented and controlled institution that it used to pressure Russia (the US's competitor in a bipolar world), has had nothing but a corrosive effect in Europe, and now they do the job for free.
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If we do simply print money to make the debt go away- foreign holders of that debt would benefit from being the first to sell for a more stable currency. The last to sell would be left holding the bag, would they not? Wouldn't this cause a run on the dollar and destabilize the world financial system?
Perhaps you're missing context here? The US Congress has established and frequently reaffirms a policy called the "debt ceiling", which requires the government to default on some of its obligations (including debt repayment) soon after reaching a certain nominal amount of debt. In 2023, negotiations to increase this ceiling lasted up until the week before the default would have begun, and 36 Senators still wanted to reject the deal and force the default. To me it does not seem insane or irrational to worry that next time there might be 41 Senators who want to default.