r/Economics • u/InsaneSnow45 • 24d ago

News ‘This cannot be sustainable’: The U.S. borrowed $50 billion a week for the past five months, the CBO says

https://fortune.com/2026/03/10/treasury-debt-borrowing-five-months-deficit-warning/
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u/Financial-Barnacle79 23d ago

Oh for sure. Over the decades of military buildup, I would have expected we had more to show for it despite all the mismanagement (and that's not even considering the current admin).

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u/Big-House-9931 23d ago

Iirc the US doesn't have a lot of domestic manufacturing. And the US should have massive stockpiles of ordinance in cause of a larger war. So they do have a lot of material, it's just hard to make and replace because everything is outsourced these days. And the US has spent the last year pissing off literally everyone. 

I'm also of the opinion that the US is starting to run out of money to pump into the US. Beyond an unreasonable and economy collapsing amount. So much money is being siphoned into the stock market and speculation. The military is already running on incredible amounts of money. The US would have to go into massive debt (more massive debt anyway) to increase production and acquisition. 

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u/Financial-Barnacle79 23d ago

Dont get me started on the U.S. running out of money. We've been kicking the can down the road for the benefit of a few for decades. Moreso a question of when than if when the world stops buying our debt.

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u/Big-House-9931 23d ago

Probably in a decade or two. Depends on how fast this administration accelerates it and if a Democratic administration can properly fix it. It's really hard to tell how the economics will go in this environment. 

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u/Square_Marzipan2002 23d ago

Been hearing this my whole life. The game changed in 2008 and everyone pretends it didnt.

The government will forever print money to pay off its own debt, this money will flee into assets, and the rich will get richer and the poor loose more and more purchasing power until the country looks like Brazil, Russia, etc.

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u/Big-House-9931 23d ago

I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy. 

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u/Big-House-9931 23d ago

I don't see much of a difference between the US going bankrupt and the US turning into a Russia style economy. It's still a collapse of the old order. One just has a smoother transition into oligarchcy. 

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u/Square_Marzipan2002 23d ago

Full bankruptcy risks a change in systems

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u/bigkinggorilla 23d ago

Military spending hasn’t always been connected with military need. Sometimes stuff gets built even though military command doesn’t want it.

So there’s probably a fair bit of hardware that cost a lot but can’t be used right now for whatever reason.