# What if the US deficit balloons to $900 quadrillion 100 years from now? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 21, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957 "2014-05-21T20:30:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PurpleClogs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f04885/32.png) [@PurpleClogs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurpleClogs)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/1 "2014-05-21T20:30:01Z")
Asking about a random rediculously high amount for worst case scenarios. What happens here and internationally? How will my hypothetical offspring personally be impacted by any of it? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/2 "2014-05-21T20:40:58Z")
Just impose a $1 trillion federal user tax on somatic regenerators–boom! No more deficit! ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/3 "2014-05-21T20:45:37Z")
A lot would depend on whether a loaf of bread costs $1000 and a basic cable subscription costs $100,000 a month (plus tax and fees) 100 years from now. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/4 "2014-05-21T20:55:12Z")
Should the same government be in economic charge, they can continue the traditional route and borrow from their future descendants; if, as is more likely, there is a successor government, or plurality of governments, they can repudiate the debt. No-one cares about Confederate debt now, and no-one is rushing forward to assume it. However to be truthful, just as no great nation achieved dominance _without_ high taxes, there weren’t many great nations which didn’t mostly run on a deficit. And, at the last, there is always the option of revaluation of currency, by which one declares 50k old dollars = 1 new dollar. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/5 "2014-05-21T21:48:08Z")
If the GDP is 900 quadrillion dollars than it will be business as usual. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/6 "2014-05-21T21:49:59Z")
You said deficit, but do you really mean debt? The current debt is $17.5 T. To get to $900,000 T means growing by 11.5% a year. If inflation plus GDP growth are at least equal to that, we can reasonably say that the value isn’t too big a deal. Historically, the two sum to somewhere in the ballpark of 5%, but 11% is imaginable without utter disaster. It gets harder if you really meant deficit. In that case, the growth rate over the 100 years is more like 15% annually. Countries have survived on far higher, but it’s stressful. I have a 100 trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe. It’s worth about $1 US. It got that way by inflating at a peak rate of around _11,000,000%_. It’s not a great place but the country is still around. If the pain were spread over a century and occurred in an otherwise well-off country like the US, it would have a much smaller impact. As Claverhouse said, you’d probably introduce “new dollars” at some point to get rid of the zeroes. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/7 "2014-05-21T22:05:32Z")
My shipping container bunker would’ve rusted over by then and my children’s children would’ve eaten all of my emergency food packets: [http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=emergency+food+packets&id=6E61BC8294440F8F99AE4549A98C04E2C61E3D5D&FORM=IQFRBA](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=emergency+food+packets&id=6E61BC8294440F8F99AE4549A98C04E2C61E3D5D&FORM=IQFRBA) would’ve been eaten or gone bad by then and they probably will tax all bunkers so heavy that they will become useless eyesores (if you can see them) and besides all of that why would you worry about 100 years from now ahead of time? Do you think they were worried about us back in 1914? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/8 "2014-05-22T08:26:37Z")
[One individual](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=723860) may single-handedly raise our national debt to $2 undecillion. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/9 "2014-05-22T08:53:54Z")
ISTM that it would be just the break the McCain campaign was waiting for… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/10 "2014-05-22T09:06:03Z")
The government can’t just declare it has a $900 quadrillion dollar national debt (and I can’t see why it would want to). The national debt arises because somebody loaned us the money in the first place. So if we owe $900 quadrillion dollars it’s because somebody loaned us something like $500 quadrillion dollars and those lenders must have thought it was a reasonable idea. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/11 "2014-05-22T11:17:18Z")
Which is unlikely to happen. At some point, a nation heavily in debt suddenly sees lenders unwilling to lend anymore. Usually, this happens when it becomes apparent that paying the interest on the debt is becoming too much for the nation’s finances to handle. We’re obviously nowhere near that point yet, but if our interest payments got to something like $2 trillion in today’s dollars, we’d probably experience a sovereign debt crisis. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/12 "2014-05-22T12:16:54Z")
I’m sure cutting taxes for quintillionaires will take care of it all. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-us-deficit-balloons-to-900-quadrillion-100-years-from-now/688957/13 "2014-05-22T14:31:54Z")
Who cares? That’s like 100 years from now. 😉