There is something broken in our economies. Take America, you can look at their published national debt.
$486,887,855,914,765
Just stop! Take a deep breath and think about this for a moment. First of all, where did you get this number from? It's bad enough that you misrepresent the debt as something it isn't, but you also inflate the number.
The American government, like Britain, Germany, Italy — every other country in the world — has borrowed money like there is no tomorrow.
There are important differences between the countries you cited here that show you know nothing about economics. Some of those are "currency issuers" and some use a currency they don't have complete control (sovereignty) over, like the Euro. The latter are revenue constrained, much like individuals, US states, cities, businesses, etc.
The first two, America and Britain, are currency issuers. This means that their currencies are floating and the number of said currencies in circulation are not constrained by their ability to generate revenue. They can "afford" anything that potentially exists and is for sale denominated in their currencies. This makes them the price setter for the things they purchase in the private sector, subject only to the availability (supply) of those things and the willingness of sellers to transact commerce with their government.
This also gives an entirely different meaning to "debt", as they don't need to borrow when they can create currency in infinite amounts as needed, even in the total absence of revenue. There is simply no "infinity+1" in math that would make them better able to spend in the future by collecting their own unit of account back.
Borrowing then becomes a way of contracting, not expanding, the money supply, similar to taxation except temporary and with a small premium paid for voluntarily giving up the liquidity of the money borrowed. It also enables the monetary policy of the central bank by setting the interest paid on its bonds.
You, the taxpayer, are responsible for that debt.
This simply isn't true. The currency issuer makes payments in its unit of account for the resources and labor it demands from the private sector, providing that it leaves some currency in the economy. The difference between money spent by the federal government and the money it collects is the "deficit", and the historical accumulation of that difference is the "debt". The deficit is accounting for the year-to-year "net" payment and the debt is our "net" money supply that is required to retire private sector bank debt or be net saved.
Every dollar/pound/peso/etc. of deficit spending becomes someone's monetary asset in the respective private sector economy of the country issuing it. Simple dual entry accounting practice would tell one that money collected cannot be applied to the country's debt and also pay for future spending. This means that every unit of account spent by those countries is brand new, not recycled from taxation of other revenue.
But if inflation doesn’t happen, we will enter a situation where the entire income received by our governments will not be enough to service their accumulated debt.
There is no "finite pile" of existing money that must be divided between the private sector and the respective government. This concept is an antiquated leftover from the gold standard and the propensity of uninformed people (many of them economists and political leaders) to conflate the budget process of a currency-issuing government with their own finances.
This propensity makes for very effective propaganda, but it also enables the fear that limits our society in funding the public purpose the government is mandated to fund in our (and most other) Constitution. Falsely presenting the government as being revenue constrained, needing to "collect or borrow" from the wealthy, or burden the working class to fund itself and its programs, serves to give much more control over living standards and acceptable wage/benefits levels capital must offer to labor to maintain a workforce.
Servicing the debt is no more burdensome than any other spending for the currency-issuing government. Debt itself is not necessary to fund spending and serves only as a temporary tax on the economy. It does have the added utility of incentivizing thrift and offering some control over bank interest rates.
It is far more accurate to state that "spending funds borrowing" than the opposite as the money needed to purchase government's debt instruments must exist before their purchase. That money can only be created by the government when it spends in deficit of taxation.
A fiat currency-issuing government can never "go broke" or involuntarily fail to pay any obligation denominated in the currency it creates at will. Neither can any program that government agrees to fund (Social Security, Medicare, etc. that are artificially constrained by limited "funds" or tax collections).
The good thing is that your country’s national debt will also be more manageable and you, the taxpayer, can rest a little easier when you go to your grave.
And then you will turn in it as your children repeat the same mistakes you did.
Climate change is rapidly diminishing the effectiveness of the grand lie surrounding our debt. The massive investments needed to secure the future of our species (the world will be fine without us, so it isn't the planet that is in peril) will make moot all propaganda and lies, leaving only the truth of "real" economics out of sheer necessity and our desire to survive.
Do you want to face your children while telling them you really wanted to save them, but we simply couldn't "afford" it?
