Noah Smith

Well, background, I was originally a physics major in college.

Then I lived in Japan for a while.

Then I did a PhD in economics at the University of Michigan, worked for a couple of years as a finance professor at Stony Brook in New York, and then quit to become a writer.

And so now I just write about economics.

The United States is becoming a high-debt country compared to other rich countries.

And this didn't used to be true.

It used to be that European countries were sort of more in debt than us, and Japan was much more in debt than us.

And now, after the Great Recession and COVID and sort of the lack of resources

spending fiscal restraint that we've had in the years since COVID, we are a high debt country.

And this carries with it dangers.

Nobody knows exactly when debt starts becoming a problem.

There's no hard line.

People have tried to define that line and nobody really knows.

But at some point, the problems start creeping in.

private investors start being unwilling to buy the government's debt.

So, you know, the government borrows money by issuing bonds, right?

It sells bonds, some bonds to foreigners, but most bonds are just sold to like banks or, or regular people even, but, but mostly banks.

And then, um, you know, us banks like, like chase, you know, buy a bunch of us bonds.

And then, um,

you know, they sell these bonds and then, you know, they pay some interest rate on the bonds.