Where are all the fiscal conservatives?

What Would Jesus Do? said:

We're the richest nation in the history of the world. OF COURSE WE CAN AFFORD IT.

What I suspect you mean is that you, personally, don't want to afford it. Which is a perspective you are certainly entitled to hold.

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just for curiosity, what makes us the richest country in the world? I read daily on here about how we can't afford groceries, can afford rent, have record credit card debt, can't afford housing,,,,the government is $40trillion in debt, with no end to $$trillion deficits. It might not be long before nobody wants to buy our debt...

If our country was the neighbor down the street, we'd be taking them casseroles just to make sure the kids got a meal...

baltimorened said:

but let's give them control of our healthcare???

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Definitely not, but the healthcare system is broken. Universal payer seems to me the best solution. Then insurance companies are a large part of the problem.

baltimorened said:

just for curiosity, what makes us the richest country in the world? I read daily on here about how we can't afford groceries, can afford rent, have record credit card debt, can't afford housing,,,,the government is $40trillion in debt, with no end to $$trillion deficits. It might not be long before nobody wants to buy our debt...

If our country was the neighbor down the street, we'd be taking them casseroles just to make sure the kids got a meal...

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Not a bad argument. We clearly have the most money of any nation, and we are the country everyone else wants to trade with. But is that sufficient to make us the richest in the world? We used to make more stuff and most of the best stuff. China has clearly surpassed us in volume. What about quality?

I decided to put the question to Claude and got this nicely nuanced answer:
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Depends heavily on what you mean by "richest" — the answer changes a lot depending on the metric.

By total economic output (GDP), yes, the US is almost certainly the richest nation ever to exist. Its nominal GDP (~$28-29 trillion) dwarfs anything in history, including the British Empire at its peak or the Roman Empire. But this comparison is a bit unfair to the past — the world's population and total economic activity have grown enormously, so of course a modern economy produces more in absolute terms than one from centuries ago.

By GDP per capita, the picture is murkier. The US ranks high (top 10ish) but is regularly beaten by places like Luxembourg, Singapore, Norway, Ireland, and Switzerland. So "richest" per person, no — several smaller nations do better today.

By total accumulated wealth (not just annual output), the US also leads by a wide margin — household and national wealth estimates put the US well ahead of China, which is second. This is probably the strongest case for "richest ever," since wealth here reflects accumulated capital, real estate, financial assets, and infrastructure built up over generations.

Comparing across eras is where things get genuinely tricky:

• Economists sometimes compare historical economies using their share of world GDP rather than absolute figures — by this measure, the US at its post-WWII peak (nearly 40% of global GDP) may have had a more dominant relative position than it does today (~25%), even though today's absolute dollar figure is far higher.
• Some empires (Mughal India, Qing China) at certain points controlled a quarter or more of world economic output — arguably a more meaningful "richest in the world" claim for their time than raw comparisons across centuries of inflation and population growth.
• Purchasing power, living standards, and inequality also complicate things: a nation can have massive aggregate wealth while median citizens live modestly, or vice versa.

Bottom line: If "richest ever" means total economic output or aggregate wealth in today's dollars, yes — the US almost certainly holds that title, partly because the modern economy is just enormous compared to any prior era. If it means dominance relative to the rest of the world at the time, or wealth per person, the claim is much more debatable and other nations (past or present) have strong counterclaims.

I then asked Claude to factor in our $40 trillion debt, and got this response:
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Good timing on this question — the debt just crossed $40 trillion this week, as of Treasury data released Wednesday. Here's how that changes the "richest ever" picture.

Debt doesn't erase the wealth question, but it changes which measure matters.

• Gross assets vs. net position: The US has roughly $40T in national debt, but that's owed against a much larger base — US household net worth alone is over $160 trillion, and GDP is around $28-29 trillion annually. So even after subtracting debt, the US almost certainly still has the largest net wealth position of any nation in history. Debt is real, but it's not remotely close to wiping out US assets.
• Debt-to-GDP is the more meaningful ratio than raw dollar figures, and here the picture is more sobering. Debt held by the public passed the size of the US economy for the first time in about 80 years, and as of the first quarter of 2026, national debt represented about 122 percent of GDP. Debt held by the public is projected to break the record of 106% of GDP set in 1946 — meaning by this ratio, the US will soon be in more debt (relative to its own economy) than it was even after financing all of World War II.
• Context on scale: The $40 trillion figure amounts to about $117,000 in debt per person, and $297,000 per household, and is approximately the combined value of the economies of China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and India.
  

So — richest, with debt factored in?

• On net wealth: Still almost certainly yes. Total assets dwarf total liabilities by a wide margin.
• On fiscal health / solvency trajectory: This is where the "richest nation" framing starts to look shakier. A country can hold enormous wealth while also running an unsustainable fiscal trajectory — the debt is on track to reach $50 trillion within a few years, and interest costs now exceed defense spending. That's not a wealth problem, it's a "can the government keep servicing this without disruptive consequences" problem — rising borrowing costs, potential crowding out of other spending, and pressure on the dollar's reserve status over time.
• Historical comparison: The 1946 debt-to-GDP peak came right after winning a global war and was followed by decades of paydown through growth. Today's climb is happening in peacetime with structural drivers (Social Security, Medicare, interest) that don't go away the way wartime spending did — which is part of why the Social Security trust fund is expected to run out in 2032, with Medicare trust fund reserves depleted the following year.

Bottom line: debt doesn't dethrone the US as the wealthiest nation by net worth or output, but it does complicate any claim about being the soundest or most sustainable — those are different questions, and the debt numbers are really a story about the second one, not the first.

What Would Jesus Do? said:

We're the richest nation in the history of the world. OF COURSE WE CAN AFFORD IT.

What I suspect you mean is that you, personally, don't want to afford it. Which is a perspective you are certainly entitled to hold.

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There are differing perspectives on “can” and “should” as well. In many cases, I think entitlements do more harm than good over the long term, even if the short term intent is well-meaning. Encouraging government dependence, even indirectly, is a bad thing imo.

bdgan said:

Your intentions are good but the fallout would be devastating. The hole is just too deep at this point.

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At this point devastation is a given,.. Only the schedule is in question.

What Would Jesus Do? said:

We're the richest nation in the history of the world. OF COURSE WE CAN AFFORD IT.

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WTF,.. You do understand that it's certainly possible to be both the richest nation in the history of the world, while still spending more than you can afford,... Dollars are finite, spending is infinite.

Rifler said:

At this point devastation is a given,.. Only the schedule is in question.

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I guess it's how you define "devastation" and "schedule"

bdgan said:

I guess it's how you define "devastation" and "schedule"

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