system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How is the U.S. allowed to be 14.5 TRILLION dollars in debt? Where is all that money coming from? What's preventing us from defaulting/economic collapse? And why is our currency still considered to be strong?
gpt
The US government offers Bonds, which is basically a peice of paper saying, pay us $xxx and we'll pay you back $xxx+y in z years. Thats where the debt comes from.

Other countries by these bonds, or pensions, or investors or whatever. The bonds are typically very low interest because its seen that governments will always pay back the money they owe people.

The US debt isnt actually that big, as a percentage of GDP its like 60-90% depending on how your measure things, Japan currently has 225% GDP.

What's preventing you from defaulting is the fact that the government can raise taxes, or sell assets or cut services in the future to pay things off.

The strength of the currency is more a factor of the US economy than the debt.