Banks and credit card companies

I’m just going to leave this here… www.npr.org/sections/mon...

It's what corporations & banks owe each other. (the real number is probably double). The financial markets are all about leveraging "accounts receivable" (aka IOUs, future earnings, promised subsidies, etc.) as collateral to borrow "money" to invest in something else. Stocks & bonds are really IOUs.

Modern day slavery

That's a good measure of the wealth of the billionaires and elites to whom that debt is owed.

This! 😂 who Tf??

Eh The debt is as imaginary as the shitty AI art that adds nothing to the humor or story underneath

Are you referring to the globe that says "debt"? That doesn't look AI generated to me but I could be wrong. In general AI does really poorly with letters and spelling out words (though it can be made to do it with some effort).

The thing about text is generally outdated, it got good at that this year (still bad at text in *video*); this particular bold, narrow font is a fingerprint of ChatGPT's image model; several other telltales (terrain on planet is nonsense, gratuitous lens flare)

Ah, I’m not too familiar with chatGPT’s model so that seems plausible

Most of the schlocky AI generated politics memes you'll see lately are GPT or Grok outputs

Debt is good if managed correctly. Provides liquidity when needed by those w collateral and interest income provided to those w cash to lend. However, can trap unsophisticated borrowers (student loans, credit card, undeveloped countries, weak business). Trump just declares bankruptcy.

We owe like 20 people in the world that amount. I can think of a much better solution to the problem than paying it off.

It's funny money! On minimum wage, money is reduced to food and rent tokens! It has no other use!

Simple...RACISTS! RACISTS! RACISTS!...always the best answer...don't have to prove it!

No silly Trumps big fat wallet, we surfs have to work harder for our Royal Inbred Trumpy

Irrelevant

The Ferengi own most of the Earth's debt.

hm last time i checked the creditors were part of humanity as well

Yeah what's being left unsaid is that this is not the "net balance", it's only the debt. Humans control a large net positive amount of resources

The point of debt is to create "virtual money" that can be used now against real money that will be created through actual production later, used to pay it back and reset the debt. It isn't the same as your friend loaning you money that already exists in their pocket.

You're partially correct about the mechanism, but the money is anything but virtual. In advanced, stable economies main way of creating debt is through bonds. ANYONE who buys bonds is the government's creditor.

Also the figure cited is not government debt, but total debt (including stuff like student debt or mortgages)

I put quotes around "virtual money" exactly because it's a crude simplification. The vast majority of money is created from nothing by regular banks when they grant loans. The loan is meant to be paid back, ultimately through real production. The idea our goal should be not to have debt is wrong.

Think about it, what does "debt" really mean. To whom, for what and who really has the power to deal with it. Finally should we really care?

Yes, we should care. To cut through the noise for just a second, our kids & their kids are the ones who bear the brunt of our apathy. Debt shifts the burden of our financial profligacy to them. As if the AI hype bubble, Epstein cover-up, Gun safety & climate crises weren't enough.

They also inherit a mostly stable civilization, including hospitals, roads, electrical and information infrastructure, and so on. They should not get a free ride on our(older) backs either.

Bitch

Debt is also good. It allows people to attain things that would normally be beyond their means. I bought a house for $350k on money I got from a bank. I am paying it off $2k a month. If I had to save that to pay in cash w/o debt, now 15 years later I still would not own a house.

Debt allows us to invest in the future. Most large companies and start ups and major inventions would not exist w/o debt. You need loans to build the factory before you can begin making your widgets to start making money.

100%. You want smart loan terms, means testing, background checks, right-sizing of principle, sensible debt/growth ratios, stress testing. You don't want devalued currency, raids on social progams, tariffs on your friends, more debt just to pay the loan interest & no plan if rates rise.

But national debt isn't really "debt" - certainly not in the way you'd normally understand it. Better to think of it as so many very secure accounts with the national bank. If a bank has lots of customers, is that really a problem?

But this doesn't say national debt. It says debt. So I am assuming it is adding up all individual debt into one big pile. It is trying to say we are all idiots for getting in so much more debt than before, but this is taken way out of context. In manageable amounts debt is good.

HAHAHAHA, what context? that's my whole point you've just expounded it. I agree folks get themselves in trouble with debt. On a global scale I am clueless and frankly I don't care about any of it.

I think we are saying the same thing. I mean as long as you don't go crazy, some debt (mortgage, 1 car loan, etc) is good. By context I meant that. The meme is trying to imply all debt is bad. But debt helps people move up SES ladder if kept under control

We are you just expounded it...These random posts sometimes just bug me...for me what's the point

Nooooo not them y'all owe me that money but I am willing to settle for just one billion.

Man Charged With Assaulting Federal Agent With Sandwich in D.C. NYTs

But un-named assholes can drag you off to foreign jails with no due process & that's just fine!

Other countries like Japan and China, and from domestic lenders ( like billionaires/ pension funds/ other investment funds etc) That's why other countries are still nice to the US, if it fails they lose a lot of money. But also means the US is paying them a lot of interest as well.

I wonder this all the time.

The tech bros were hoping that the first person to go to another planet could claim the debt.

Me. You all owe me. Now, pay up.

It isn’t my fucking debt, I don’t know what everyone else has been doing, but I’m not spending shit.

Debt is made up to keep us under control.

But Wall Street is booming, so it must be ok?

The Ferengi, obviously.

Bastard.

It's just a decimal point. Why don't we just move it a few places to the left and then never talk about it to anyone.

Congratulations, has AI solved all our problems yet?

While Palestine & Sudan burn. YOU WORRY ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY?!!! WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT FAKE MONOPOLY MONEY🤷🤦‍♀️😞 fack, this is pathetic

We mostly owe it to ourselves, government holds debt which is an asset to the private sector. No one seems to get this.

We should tell the Martians we ain't gonna pay.

Well, someone must be owed the money.

we owe it to ourselves. very clever eh?

Maybe that's wages owed to the working class across the world.

Every dollar everywhere represents a debt, paid or owed.

Debt is literally where new money comes from.

In debt to WHO? The entire concept is bullshit if you really drill down into it but I do agree we owe a PROFOUND debt both to the planet / biosphere itself and to future generations. THAT will NOT be forgiven or forgotten

Let's make a new currency. You can either print it at home or find small pebbles or rocks that you think are kinda neat. We'll peg its value to bitcoin. One printyleafyrock = one bitcoin. If bitcoin drops, ours will switch to 10x whatever the highest national currency of the day is. About as legit.

G1 Series 1 Decepticons, ranked by how likely they are to demand debt from Earth: 1. Starscream. 2. Shockwave. 3. Skywarp. 4. Soundwave (including Cassetticons). 5. Megatron. 6. Thundercracker. 7. Reflector.

Ourselves. It’s how banking works. You need debt for fiat currencies. It’s why all the crypto Bros want decentralized currencies.

Dollars mean nothing. % of GDP is meaningful plus debt held by the public

Ismo was also pondering this a few years ago 😂 youtu.be/TCzv8XLocV0?...

Martians of course. Galaxy economics 101.

It's making my $3000 Visa debt not feel so bad.

Imaginary numbers that don't exist.

The problem isn't the national debt. The problem is that the median American owes over $80,000. It's not a debt crisis, it's a debt epidemic.

Shows the power of creditors over us

We owe the eight guys who own/run it.

Who then? Maybe the squirrels! They always stash nuts like pros, so why not Bitcoin too? We just want a little digital stash ourselves!

Who cares ?

To the bankers.

The Sondarans...

We are stealing from the future. From the next generations. Strip mining our planet’s resources way faster than we can pay for them. We owe the earth and will pay with our ability to survive.

@lovelysocialist.bsky.social

What we call “wealth” can’t exist without debt. Read David Graeber for details.

Money is just something humans made up…

So is language. Just because we made it up doesn’t mean it’s not real or that it doesn’t have tangible effects in the world.

Good thing we can't "hoard" language then

The Grammar Police can! 😉

The French are famous for arguing about what goes into their dictionary

What do you think you're saying here? Does this mean something in regards to the topic at hand?

Yea but thats not what hoarding is

Don't bother gamer this is just weird psuedo profundity

Property is theft. In the information world, “hoarding” takes the form of authoritarianism … someone assumes the power to say whether a word is French , or a grammar is incorrect. That’s as close to hoarding as language gets

Nice false equivalency you got there... It would be a shame of someone called you out on it.

But can’t humans also just make up a different system?

100%. And there’s probably a better way to organize than a debt system that forces people to live their lives under the constant. I’m just saying that our whole civ is built on the concept of borrowing time as a method of exchange. We can’t just turn it off. There needs to be a transition.

I absolutely agree with you. I universal standard minimum. Like, work 20 hrs a week, for which you receive quality, safe comfortable housing access to quality organic food, as well as healthcare, education and R&R. The rest of your time each week is up to you. We just have to build the system

Language is as real as a dream

And Gender

Money is not made up, the Sumerian created State Money with the invention of Cuneiform somewhere around 2000 BC or so. It is Folks perception of Money that is "Made Up". Money is simply a Record of Human Economic Interactions, Like a Scoreboard is a Record of Points Scored. #MMT #LearnMMT

The Sumerians creation Of Money led to the creation of Modern Civilizations and Centers of Trade like Alexandria Egypt. #HistoryOfMoney youtu.be/FYbavuReVF4?...

"That is on top of everything else We know and don't know yet based on what we have just been able to see and just because we have seen it or not doesn't mean it hasn't happened" ~ #Kamalisms

Humans didn't invent language. Hell, mammals didn't even invent language.

Didn't know know The 1% aren't from Earth?

China

In debt to who?

Someone's debt is someone else's wealth (in theory).

Yup. We might as well just cancel all debts. What would a macro economist say about this?

I'm guessing most would say that debt like this helps the economy continue, since most are neoliberals

If you're going to build a factory to make stuff, you need to take out a loan. Over time you pay the loan back, while the economy grows. The more people borrow money, the more rocks and metals get turned into products, and the more the debt grows. Without debt there would be no economy.

I think we know who, the ones who got Trump elected. He handed out trillions to a few super wealthy people, then made us take massive debt to pay for it.

We owe the private banks and corporations who loaned the money to the respective governments.

Just print the damn money 🤣🤦

I assume they're totaling unpaid debt? Like obviously, when you owe a debt to someone, you're supposed to pay them back at some future date, but if the gains aren't materialized, the debt is -$5 or whatever.

Just the interest on our national debt is the biggest payment out of the budget NOW!

It’s a fake number that can be erased by Mother Nature. Or the heavy guns of the entire Universe if necessary. There’s a black hole or giant asteroid solution to every problem in the Universe.

The future.

Bingo. It's the string of obligations we owe to our future selves and our children. And it doesn't even account for the absolutely devastated ecosystem they'll inhabit and consequences of that. The young kids of today are totally, irrevocably screwed in ways we're not even sure of yet.

Decepticons are already here. Look at the White House.

What planet do we owe it to?

Ask yourselves: To whom?

It’s me - send it to me. Thanks.

Can’t we just hit ‘delete?’

I KNEW it was a mistake taking out a loan with those Alpha Centaurians...

Probably the highest gdp in history too. It’s a bit of a wash isn’t it?

Know how this could be helped? STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO THE FU*KING RICH

Ask Tommy Tiernan youtu.be/0v--fTVAWE8?...

The wealthy. Honestly we could forgive the global debt but nation like China and Russia and the u.s. would vote against it because they are all oligarchies.

The future.

It's a debt to nature. We've been pillaging her since the industrial revolution and the bill is coming due

💔 🌏

It's all the money that is owed by anyone, anywhere. Nations, corporations, you. There will always be debt when there are financial markets. Your debt could be $40kUSD today, $150kUSD tomorrow, -0- when you pay it all off w/your inheritance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lim...

Jupiter’s gonna collect, bro.

That's what you get for doing what you were told ^

I say this all the time. No one is coming to repo Earth if we don't pay.

Your children!

That's how much rich people have stolen from poor people.

I think it’s $37.

Me. The world owes me restitution for the bullshit state of affairs. Pay up bitches

Mostly pension money actually. In order words, rich old white guys.

China

Which is likely very close to the combined wealth of the top 10 or 20 oligarchs. Coincidence❓🤔

Ferengi We owe that to ferengi

Very stupid headline. Net debt is zero.

Who? Boomers with pension funds. If tomorrow you said all that debt is trash, every single pension fund would be bankrupt

Is the Republican Party now called the Decepticons? I mean lying, propaganda, and generation of fear is what they are about.

Unfortunately the Dems are definitely not the autobots. More like uselessbots and unlike the cartoon and movies they always lose to the deceptions.

The Democrats are more like the Autobots in the original Marvel Comics run of Transformers. Riven by petty jealousies and internal conflicts, overly reliant on deus ex machina. Optimus Prime spends most of his time dead, beheaded, or self-flagellating. At the climax of their epic war, he SURRENDERS.

The billionaire-icons.

How big would the wet wipe need to be to clear that then. If it was just wiped what would happen?

Wow, there is a lot of ignorant people on earth... Also, the earth is not flat 😹

Pension funds, retirement funds, investors & people who save. This is who America owes money to. #debt

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/....

Money is a man made construct, in todays IT world it is also completely abstract...just numbers in cyberspace. It is one of those things you'd do well not thinking too much about, like the concept of infinity and what kind of endgame cats are planning.

and what happened to new toaster when we opened account⁉️

Good question who do we owe since the world is not even ours and we are just a temporary spec on it for a small period of time. If we go extinct does someone else get the debt. This is all man-made constructs and not real in the larger scheme of things. It's just pathetic

Our children’s children

IDIOCY! Get real 👌

China and others hold U.S. debt.

Where's the money GOING? Into the Christian fascist BILLIONAIRE oligharchs' portfolios and coffers. I'd rather WE'D BURN THAT MONEY THAN LET BILLIONAIRES HAVE IT.

The Illuminati

Tax the rich

Money isn't real.

Thanks to this administration. Money in their pockets

You're not wrong but the number would have been high regardless. This is the entire world's debt, not just the US.

My Mum.

The world is not in debt. The REST of the world is in debt. A fraction of some fraction of them all is not.

remember that one episode of dave the barbarian where everyone owes everyone else a million dollars, so one guy writes a check and they pass it around the circle?

The Three Stooges had a bit like that too! 🤣

I'll take it in large bills please.😎

If the whole world is in debt how does that work?

The iron bank will get its due.

For the most part, bonds. Our government issues bonds and promises to pay them back at a future date, plus interest. When a government is trustworthy and fiscally responsible, they can lower the interest rate, and people will still buy them. T wants to cut them just to make himself look good 🥵

Trump wants to hide as much as he can, fuck everyone else.

Tw0 what dept and wh0m. . Generated to c0ntr0ll.

Me. Y’all owe me. And it’s bullshit.

🤣🤣

By the Identity rule of accounting every "Debt" must be balanced by a "Surplus" so where is the National Surplus? The National Surplus is in the $29 Trillion Economy. Want it back, Tax it out, or stop issuing T~Bonds and make them Hold their Wealth in Cash. The National Debt is the "Big Lie" #MMT

The U.S. Gov't creates its own Money, there is Money for anything Congress wants there to be Money for. It is not a problem of Scarcity of Money, it is a problem of the Distribution of Money. Starving the Poor is definitely Pure Cruelty, not Lack of Funds. #MMT

Here it is, "The Big Lie" of Politics in the U.S. That there is somehow a Scarcity of Money for a Gov't that creates its own Money at Will. What a bunch of Rubbish. If you learn MMT the Politicians cannot play this Neoliberal Austerity Shell Game. #MMT #LearnMMT #AusterityPolicy

People simply don't understand what "National Debt" means, it doesn't mean a Sovereign Currency Gov't has a "responsibility to pay" a Foreign Entity. ND is just the Difference of how much a Gov't has placed into its Economy and how much has Taxed out, 2nd Grade stuff #MMT youtu.be/Eh3iAzbLUqI?...

It may be 2nd grade stuff, but it needs to be explained in ways that 2nd graders can understand so that everyone could actually get it. Those who benefit like to keep it wrapped in smoke and mirrors. 🤔 😳💸💸💸💰🎩

MMT is not that hard to understand if effort is applied and there are different levels of understanding. The First is the U.S. Gov't is not a Household or a Business, it creates its own Money, Controls the Supply and the Interest Rate in the Economy, What Household does that? #MMT #LearnMMT

The problem I see is that the percentage of people willing to apply any effort in this area is not enough to change the status quo. Also, many of those who might wish to, are stuck in the hamster wheel of day to day survival. It needs to be distilled into paradigm shifting tidbits. 😏

You only need about 12% of a population to start a Revolution, even an economic one, then the sheeple will follow, so you should probably just mind you own business and not worry about it until then. #MMT #GeneralStrike

Our children.

The ultra wealthy. Time for a haircut.

youtu.be/pENxsLVR_Xs?...

Mostly? Ourselves. Social Security "funds" are actually 'invested' in Treasury bills and bonds. Next: trade partners that need to buy dollar-denominated assets will park their money there. also: financial organizations will often have a lump of Federal Notes as a bulwark against crazy risk.

Most of the bonds are owned by American Billionaires who collect interest on them, as they also enjoy massive tax cuts, thanks to politicians, they also OWN!

I am glad to hear you agree we need to get money out of politics, but all US households (which include billionaires) only hold $3T in Treasury debt, a tiny share of the $37,066T Owed by the US, 50% of is a direct result of the tax-reduction of the wealthy since 2000 and lack of enforcement.

We owe the planet. Or we die.

Thanks to all the Repugnants!

The rich who conned working people into subsidising the ultra wealthy through the tax system in the 1980s. The rich have never looked back whilst the media plays the stupid "how would you pay for it game" with progressive governments. It is only possible because of economic illiteracy.

Nobody is paying that back.

Marty McFly and The Protagonist. 😅

Surely the idiots that bought them Ned rounding up and sectioning too

Good thing DOGE put all those people out of work and made all those cost savings cuts. Now they can spend more????

I don’t get it isn’t population always growing so why wouldn’t he associated details grow??

One of my earliest questions was how do people printing money supply know how much the world is worth? Side note: adults do not like questions like that. The answer: they don't know, don't try to know & falsely count non-existent male labor while refusing to count actual labor of women & minorities.

Great name for a band!

Hail Megatron!!

So the way I understand it... Person A lends $50 to Person B Person B lends that $50 to Person C Person C lends that $50 to Person A Only $50 has ever changed hands, but the total debt is $150. Like that, but global and with a lot more money.

I think A lends to B, but B is $60 in debt because of interest, and B lends to C who expects $70 back with the interest added, and C lends to A but expects $80 in return. Only $50 has changed hands, but the debt to be repaid stands at $210.

1st scenario: A pays C back, and C pays back B, and B pays back A, the $50 ends back in A's hand, and there is no debt left. In reality, that original $50 gets back to A, and there's still $60 owed. A pays $30 of the $50 to finish his debt, ending with only $20, maybe $30 if B pays his interest! 🫤

And it is ALL IMAGINARY!!

World's Debt's, is Offshore Accounts Profits.

The funniest part of capitalism is that, with no outside force, the world can run its systems so poorly that we accrue a crippling debt to ourselves. It's nonsensical.

China

👍

Lol

We owe FUTURE GENERATIONS. This has always been the case. The difference now is we can never repay them.

Debt is man made!

Money isn’t real. “The economy” is imaginary. We could stop all this nonsense right now if people would stop being selfish pricks.

Trump has just added more.

If you have any 'investments', it's you. If you have any money, it's you. Money is debt. The more money you have, the more you are 'owed', that is how money works.

We just owe each other, its all fake. Money is not real, we made it up. We could easily say the debt is 0 and its gone.

Euhm no, that loss will ruin other economies. They do really well from the interest the US is paying.

We also do really well from the interest they pay us - better actually.

Yes. Clue: the "Decepticons" are people, not autonomous robots.

The earth has no debts.

There should be an amnesty for the whole world ( except for Trump's bit)

Who do we owe? Plants? Space people? Solution without a problem.

No. That's tax money that has been overspent, either through mismanagement or through spending on inappropriate items. They owe it to all of us who have paid taxes, and not only will they not pay us, but we will have to pay them with more taxes.

Taxes do not and cannot fund anything. Taxes actually destroy money same as if you chucked it all on a big bonfire. To us, every $ is credit. But to the govt (the currency issuer) all money is debt. So many IOUs. What happens when an IOU is returned to you? The debt simply ceases to exist.

What the "debt" actually represents is so many deposits at the national bank - the treasuries/gilts. If a bank has lots of customers, is that really a problem..?

I understand that this debt is what we call a "public deficit" in Europe. Obviously, this is a complex issue, and it's difficult to discuss it in just a few words.

And what if we don’t? I mean sure the debt will go up but really, imagine if even 3 million decided to stop paying taxes today. What would happen?

For that, we would have to come to an agreement, and I assure you that this is very difficult, and the politicians and bankers know it.

Ha, ha, ha, who's in charge of the game???

Pretty soon, the world will just be passing each other IOU’s.

I mean, that's literally what money is.

I’m talking, like, barroom napkins IOU’s.

Ah, now you're talking crypto. 🫠

😂

Each other. But through so many avenues it's not like we can know how to wipe out the same amount on both sides

only one man can balance the books

Jupiter is going to send some moons to bust the earth’s kneecaps if it doesn’t pay up by the next solstice 😂

Debt isn’t a monster under the bed — it’s the wallpaper. You just don’t notice it until it starts peeling.

Is this why people keep giving their money to God?

Most people who do that drink trump cum

COBRA

Our children and grand-children. Capitalism knows only one thing: exploit a yet untapped resource, sell it and make a profit doing that. When nations borrow money, they exploit in advance next generations’ resources.

In the Bible, God's plan included a complete forgiveness of all debt every 50 years.

We owe the future. Plus tax money is used to pay the 'interest' on bonds to already rich people, who 'lend' the 'money' back to the governments.

Who do we owe? The Iron Bank of Braavos? Or just the RICH?

No Kings.

B.A.N.K.E.R.S.

Ironically, it is the planet that is owed. And we refuse to spend a penny saving her species, diversity, her balance, her air, her water, her earth, her life.

And who do you think owes that money? Every day people or the 1%ers who are leveraging massive borrowing on theoretical assets like stocks that don't actually exist? It's a con, it's all a huge con

Money is a construct. What this says is humanity doesn't give two shits about the future.

Megatron does not suffer indebted fools lighrly!

It's just a game rich people play, doesn't really mean anything to regular people.

It's effectively just a ledger between the wealthy and the poor. The debt represents an obligation that the rich can collect in future, against the working poor. I'm a capitalist. This is OK - within reason. But too high a wealth inequality will cause social tensions.

Misleading. If there's $324T in debt, the other side of the ledger is $324T to the good.

When we're issuing bonds to create dollars to pay interest on bonds, there is no other side of the ledger, just an infinite debt spiral. The fact that the US government is the largest holder by far of US government debt, just highlights that these excess treasuries serve no useful purpose.

That’s basically just the amount of money sloshing around in rich people’s bank accounts.

Find him and shoot him. Problem solved.