system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why does it matter if a country is in debt? It seems like nothing happens anyways seeing the US is $17 trillion in debt.
gpt
Debt for a country is very different than debt for a person. People expect to retire some day and live on savings, but governments can reasonably assume they will exist forever. If they ever stopped existing, after all, then the debt may just get ignored by whoever comes after. As long as a country is able to pay its interest, they can continue to be perfectly solvent, as interest is all its investors really want anyway. If your economy keeps growing in the long term, you can keep paying more in interest as your tax base keeps increasing, so it isn't really a long-term problem either. In addition, having a bunch of debt with other nations means that those nations don't want to see you fail, and may chip in during hard times. All taken, sovereign debt and personal debt are completely different things, and the frenzy being whipped up by the media over the big numbers is unjustified.