The Bank of Japan’s balance sheet is at 110 percent of GDP.

I was about to make a joke that it looked like they could go about another 69.8%. Now I'm glad I waited.

What does that even signify, a federal bank owning >100% of its attached country's GDP? Debt in excess of produced value, i.e., the country being underwater?

GDP is per year. Analogous to a person making $100k/yr with a $110k mortgage.

Edit: Although perhaps not that analogous because is this even technically "debt"?

The analogy has always been strained, since national debt just doesn’t work like personal debt.

Also, when you can borrow at sub-inflation rates, there’s rarely an incentive to stop.

It's the Bank of Japan who decide the borrowing rates, so, not problem in that regard.

Ok, but they don't control inflation. At some point, I think it's obvious that printing money becomes counterproductive. But where exactly is that line?

The Bank of Japan, can actually control inflation, because, as we have determined, they control the interest rate. Also, if necessary, the government could raise taxes and run a surplus to diminish inflationary pressures.

But those are moot points, because the problem of Japan for the last 20 years has been deflation, not inflation. Despise that, as you can see in the comments here, there are people that still predict inflation in the future.

They don’t control inflation. But all of the warnings about hyperinflation being “right around the corner” have remained hilariously false. So who knows?

They only control their inefficiency around an increasing trajectory

It's not debt, it's only a number that reflect the accumulate of past government deficits.

A government is the issuer of the currency, so, nothing to do with the debt of a household or a business.

What if we alter that analogy to a person who makes 100k/yr with a 110k mortgage, and next year they make 101k with a 115k mortgage, and next year they make 102k with a 120k mortgage, and so on?

Then I think we should rename it from "mortgage" to "student loans". As long as they keep making minimum payments, this is technically fine.

Misses the point, but sure, "student loans" is a fair comparison. The name doesn't matter to me, it's all debt.

I don't see it as "technically" fine that the rate at which the debt grows consistently exceeds the rate at which the income grows. There comes a point in time in which the principal of the debt is large enough that minimum payments exceed income.

The US government doesn’t make 100% of GDP. GDP is $21 trillion. US government takes in $3.46 trillion.

This is not how reserve banking works, doesn't reflect how much the US pays to service it's bonds, misses the fact that the fed creates new money and loans it out, it doesn't have obligations it can default on, misses the fact that the US would have to default on its debt to erase it, misses the fact that there isn't that much gold in the world (if the us stole every oz of gold on the planet it would have to devalue it's currency by half to return to the gold standard)

.... On and on and on.

This is honest gibberish.

The claim that the Fed is somehow "private" has been rebutted millions of times. Google has an explainer above its search results: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALe.... The structure is a historical artefact with some private elements, but it is entirely controlled by governments and the private banks notionally holding some shares have no voting rights nor do they receive dividends.

Continuing to use this conspiracy theory can only be considered bad faith.

This article supports OP's thesis:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22992348

Defaulting on the debt means anyone owning treasury bonds lose their money.

The liabilities of the Fed [0] are money in circulation, reserves accounts of banks (mainly to meet requirements) and the deposits of the Treasury. Besides the fact that it is not clear why the Fed may collapse when they can create money to pay back their liabilities, I am not sure what it would mean for the Fed to default on the bills and coins in circulation (?) or to wipe out the accounts of banks when those very banks are legally bound to hold money in those accounts.

[0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

This does not address my points.

- A large chunk of the Fed liabilities are coins and bills. What does it mean for the Fed to "default" on those coins and bills?

"... With no federal debt to pay interest on, personal income taxes are going away. The whole wealth transfer mechanism of the central bank system gets cut off."

"2nd Edit: Also, notice how the IRS dealine for filing and pay has been delayed, for the first time in history? Because Trump ordered it. The IRS isn't even pursuing collection actions on old taxes owed. The filing deadline is going to get moved again to the end of the year, mark my words."

Why do you hold these views on taxation?

Don't you?

I do not, but could be persuaded

Your Bloomberg link is 404, but here is a copy of the editorial;

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-cure-risks-being-worse-1...

Fixed. Thanks.

Why would going to a gold backed currency imply that debt would be wiped out? I can see the machiavellian reasoning for spending trillions of debt financed dollars if you know you're going to default, but I don't get how the gold standard helps.

I could believe that Trump wants to do one or both, but I don't see them as connected in a coherent way.

Destroying the petro-dollar was critical to breaking the central bank rule. You can't back money with oil right now. What's the current price per barrel of oil again?

Selling off the US petroleum reserve helped force the glut of oil on the market. Trump unloaded it when oil was high, and now he's refilling the tank with super cheap crude. Heck, every tanker in the world is trying to get their oil into the US petroleum reserve right now.

What do you back money with if not gold?

You all think Trump is a bumbling idiot but you are going to feel gut punched after he's played his hand. And, he hasn't even broken suit to trump his opponent yet!

Even if I didn't think that this entire prediction was completely ridiculous and not based on how our monetary system works, at all, I would still know it is total b.s. simply because it implies that Trump has some strategic master plan.

The man doesn't plan to the end of the sentence before he starts vomiting words. He's not planning a masterful takeover of our monetary system.