Ngelmish wrote:greed and death wrote:I am not sure India would be happy about turning their country into a opium producing factory, nor the Chinese being forced to import all the opium we can get India to produce.
Czarist Russia also managed to get about half a century out of debt expansion before collapsing due to other political failures. Debt to GDP historically has never been the sole factor of a nation's decline. And where that decline occurs, there are always other, graver factors at play.
Debt to GDP has been less of a factor when the population was growing rather than graying as they are in the West, production was expanding due industrial revolution, and two thirds of the world had recently been opened up to trade thanks to imperialism.
Point 2 may be possible with the current rise of tech but with the unicorns dying off it looks more and more like a bubble. Points 1 and 3 however are unlikely to ever occur again.
While Americas debt is far from being a problem the 200% or 300% of times past simply will not be sustainable in the the foreseeable future.