yeah, what happen if you do not have a clue but you are still interested ?

also, remember, the same that have clue are the ones that have made all these economy failure these years, the same that are at the governement, th same that take decision etc ...

hum ...well, all is linked to the return to "0" that clealry is just a prediction at that moment (even if you seem to think it is a fair one).

but, I m more interested by what you said after : according to me, the debt is direclty linked to the account balance I posted because a negative account balance means a need of cash, which means a bigger debt IMO.

After, about the "poor" word, well, It was meant to be provocative (my first thread didnt have this world I think).
But I thought it was still relevant because if me I have a negative account then ... I m poor.
Why not applicate it to the countery as a whole ?

so individu are the righest in term of "everyday living" making this country the richest.
But in term of monetary stock, account balance, it is the poorest.

Question (fair one I think) : isnt this high way of living directly linked to the high debt value ? people have more becuase they spend more because they have more money that direclty comes from the debt ?

"surplus" ? when US exported a lot you mean ?

because if you look at the debt, it starts going up (being negative) since 1900 (with variations ofc) ... so this debt story is an ancient one and even during the "after war", USA (and others countries ofc) had a debt

The return to zero thing is not a prediction. It's a basic fact of economics.

When an American buys something that another American has made, he pays for it in dollars, as he only has dollars to spend. Likewise, when an American buys something from China, he can only pay for it in dollars. A Chinese company does not want dollars, because dollars will not buy much in China (taxes, by law, have to be paid in yuan, workers will only work for yuan, most other companies in China will only accept yuan).

So, someone, somewhere will sell the American some yuan for his dollars. This could be a Chinese investor, the Chinese Government, some Chinese bank. Hell, it could even be some bank from some random country that has got its hands on a supply of yuan.

Now, the question is: why would someone be willing to exchange yuan for dollars? What benefit would a Chinese bank have for buying the dollars, and selling the yuan? The reason is that they know, in the future, people will want to be buying dollars so that they can buy goods from American countries - if Americans had nothing to sell, they wouldn't be able to buy anything.

Trade is trade. Whether it's a cow for 6 sheep, or a cow for $60 (and sheep are worth $10 each), or $60 for 100yuan. Both sides, given time, will always be equal. This is what I mean by return to zero, it's not a prediction. It's a fact of trade.

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I think the fundamental thing here is that, if you have a negative account, you are not poor. You only become poor if, for some reason you cannot afford to service that debt. When you buy a house, and take on a £400,000 mortgage, you do not become poor, in fact, in many ways, you become richer. You only become poor if you stop being able to make those monthly payments on the mortgage.

The way the account balance works is exports - imports, but that means we possess the wealth to import. If you switch over to the Financial Balance, USA runs a huge surplus. If we kept a balance like this up for too long, yes we could be in trouble, but it means that for the time being other countries have a lot of faith in the USA's ability to pay for their goods and services

I'm talking about trade surplus/debt. Your talking about public debt (the kind the government holds as loans).

After WW2, we had a trade surplus for 40 years, but didn't always have a public surplus (meaning the government brought in more taxes than it spent).

The two are interlinked though. Foreign governments buy up our bonds so that we have money to buy their stuff, and they know we're good for it, so they'll profit in the short term (trade) and in the long-term (bond interest)

They're interlinked as a mechanic, in the short term, but in the long term, the two can run seperately.

Wow, where did this concept of measuring wealth come from?