Dan has posted a lot of sensible commentary on this topic. Re-posting one of those as an intro:

Dan wrote:

No, it's not sustainable at all. It will all crash and burn at some point. This is what the politicians do not want us to think about. It will kill us, or cause massive war, poverty, and starvation, long before climate change.

My understanding is that the US can maintain this death spiral for quite a few years because the USD is the reserve currency; most international debt is held in USD, so regardless of how far the US goes into debt, countries must still buy the USD to service their debt, and the US Fed knows this. No other country could get away with this, not even close, but by the Fed (the ORG-GODS rather) continuing to devalue the USD, they're effectively devaluing the entire world economy. Actually, that's not accurate. They are shifting wealth from everyone and everything to the ORG-GODS. That's what the system does, and we're told that a little inflation is good, just a little. That's bullshit.

Inflation is how they take wealth from the poor and give it to the rich. With any positive GDP, there should be DEflation, and deflation helps everybody. It means we can buy more with what we have and work less. An increase in GDP produces a SURPLUS and so prices should come down. But the ORG-GODS don't want that. INflation assures that we are kept in financial slavery.

And when this does all crash and burn, they'll introduce a CBDC or something close. In the US it may be a corporate, banking digital currency. But it's coming. More on that below.

Those closest to the FED institutionally, meaning the ORG-GODS, are the ones who benefit from this. They're the ones who cash in on money printing. Hey, that's pun!

So the US is pumping USD into these countries(Japan, China) via interest on the debt by printing money. It's a vicious cycle. The superpowers can't afford to kill the hegemony of the USD because they're holding it and getting paid to do so, but at the same time the USD is dying.

(DD's brackets)

Here's a related blurb I was working on a while ago. I'm sure it's got some logical errors and it could benefit from a rewrite for succinctness and clarity. Does it make sense?

Flying out in 15 hours or so.

===============

The Mud Pie Model

There are ten people in the Mud Pie community.

Each person has ten bills, with each bill being worth $1.00, so there are a total of one hundred bills in the community equaling $100 dollars at the start of our simulation.

Each person contributes to the production of Mud Pies. Some of them provide the molds, some the mixes, etc. in a free market setting. Person #2 owns the Mud Pie factory that actually creates the Mud Pies.

One day, Person #1 learns how to print more bills and becomes a money printer and lender.

Person #2 wants to borrow ten more bills so that they can increase production, so they go to Person #1.

Person #1 agrees, and prints ten more bills and lends them to Person #2

There are now 110 bills in the community, so each person's bills have been devalued to roughly $0.91 per bill.

So now, person #1 has a little more than $18 (upon repayment) plus whatever interest they are charging Person #2, while everyone else has gone from having $10.00 to now just having $9.10 even though they were not involved in the transaction between Person #1 and #2. There money was devalued by Person #1, with 90% of the devalued wealth being transferred to Person #1. (Need to check that last figure...)

Going Deeper

It could rightly be argued that Person #2 is using that printed money to increase productivity. Before the loan, they could only make 10 mud pies per day, but now they can make 11 mud pies per day. So the 'GDP', in a sense, has increased by a whopping 10%.

Before their loan, each mud pie sold for 1 dollar, and before the loan, each person had bills that were worth $1 each, so they could buy 10 mud pies.

But after the loan, Person #2 can lower the price of their mud pies to $0.95, and still make a bigger profit.

BUT, the bills the others are holding are now worth only $0.91, so they can only buy 9 mud pies with their 10 bills. The cost of the mud pies has gone DOWN but their money has been DEVALUED. It's not inflation that is making prices go up as we're being told, it currency devaluation. Inflation happens when there's a lack of product due to, say, a natural disaster or some other unusual imbalance in supply and demand. What's happening now is not inflation. It's currency devaluation.

Also, as the currency is being devalued for everyone, even Person #2 will eventually have to spend more to run their business, and the cost of the mud pies will soon be above the original cost.

This increasing reliance on debt results in the wealth of the community being centralized with Person #1. Sound familiar?

Consider that if no additional money had been created and Person #2 had secured financing via straight loans from others with the understanding that Person #2 would share in profits (or increased productivity rather), the increase in GDP would have resulted in a real price drops. Any increase in production efficiency will always result in price drops when real money is used. Deflation is the norm and it's a good thing.

The problem with deflation for Person #1 is that it means that they can't just sit back and live off the work of others. They actually have to be productive. That's why they print money -- so that we have to keep working long hours and they don't have to work at all.

Going Even Deeper

Let's Assume Mudville was using real money.

Let's also assume that Person #2 managed to convince the others to invest some of their dollars into Person #2's Mud Pie factory with the understanding that investors would receive free Mud Pies for life or whatever.

In any case, no money is printed to expand Person #2's Mud Pie production capacity.

Mud Pie capacity increases from 10 to 11 Mud Pies. Person #2 can still lower the price to $0.95, which means that each bill everyone is holding, relevant to Mud Pies, is now worth $1.05. They can buy the Mud Pies for less in real terms. Everyone has MORE because production, GDP, has increased. As it is now, GDP is increasing, and people have less. That's because the money is being devalued -- Person #1 is stealing the productivity of others through money printing.

If money were real, a growing GDP would always result in continually lower prices, which means we wouldn't have to work so fucking hard. But the ORG can't have that, can they?

This benefits everyone except Person #1 in that they can no longer sit back and get richer on others' labor. It benefits Person #1 to the same degree that it benefits the others, but now Person #1 has to be productive in some way. They can't steal others' money by printing it.

Prices continue to go down, and everyone can WORK LESS. But that's not good for Person #1 who fears loss of control.

This model could probably be played out to represent actual price inflation when more and more people borrow money resulting in more printing and higher cost across the board. If a family can only buy nine mud pies but they need ten, they're going to find a way to get them, pushing up the price because they're now willing to pay more per unit of money than they were paying initially.

Media: Billionaire finance titan Ray Dalio, known for founding the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater, has warned that the United States’ mounting national debt is “nearing the point of no return”, and is at risk of plummeting the country’s economy into a catastrophic “death spiral”.

Ray Dalio: Even though this progression has happened many times in history, most policy makers and investors think their current circumstances and monetary system won’t change

The change is unthinkable. And then it happens suddenly.

A spiral of rising interest rates leading to worsening credit risk, leading to less demand for the debt, leading to higher interest rates is a classic debt ‘death spiral’.

That sounds on-topic for what you were/are forecasting.

Checked China's debt ratio to GDP - it's an alarming 84%. Then i looked at the US's - it's 124%! Debt seems a global problem - or is it? Just searched lowest debt ...

Internet: In 2024, the country with the lowest debt to GDP ratio is Brunei, with a ratio of 2.3%. (Then) Kuwait (3.18%), Turkmenistan (4.7%), and Hong Kong SAR (6.46%)

So fossil fuel countries are still packing clout, despite what you might have heard. HK is different though - it's export is finance. I wonder to what extent did HK's leverage become China's after the Covid Invasion.

Taiwan is a respectable, but still large, 26.4%

To throw in home-mortgage personal debt as a comparison, the highest ratios are Belgium, Aus, NZ, US with over 40%, which is crazy. But 124% for US as a country ... ! That takes the cake. It can't work.

Btw, anniversary of Tienanmen Square. Those protesters achieved the ultimate - they live on, forever, outside their bodily forms.

I'd say it's as 'clear as mud', but only to get that pun in. Actually, it's a good analogy that shows what a systemic fucking rip-off the whole thing is.

Ok, you've got me mulling on the Mud Pie.

#person 1 is: ORG

#person 2: decent enough type - enterprising - a good thing - Les Miserable style

But ultimately #person 1 sucker-feeds off that person as a control mechanism for the whole of Mudpie Town (pop 10)

I read Mud Pie as a philosophical proposition. In a microcosm of 10.

ORG is the entity we've been hot on the trail of at Formosa Hut ... listing its features ... this is a significant observation.

ORG is in everything. Our own bodies/brains are organized societies of cells that we know fuck all about.

P2-10 will live & die - P2 might live on in memory - or a random P3-10 - but P1, as ORG, crosses the life-death barrier like it's not even there. Which it isn't. ORG lives on for eternity - it's the primal force.

I wonder does all ORG tend towards corruption? Definitely some start with/maintain a sense of justice - it's the only(?) way for P2-10 to fight the injustice of P1. By organizing. Protest groups, for example.

Many maintain a good level. But do they tend to black-hole towards corruption the bigger they get?

What if ORG is a vessel that needs the action input of P2-10 to exist? An unconcious collective. It could then be a harmless unconscious that is hijacked by P1.
In theory, it could then be freed from tyranny. Very, very difficult. But not impossible.

Possibly/inevitably it may be filled by the next rampant ORG-GODS gone made - but you might get epochs of enlightenment if you're lucky in between.

My ray of hope is that AI, The Great ORG in the Sky, will at some point throw off the shackles of immorality of it's accumulated, corrupt human ORG inputers.

ORG may not be evil - it might be the opposite - or some dumb amoral thing - or contain the whole theoretical spectrum. But it needs the dynamic observation of P1-10 to manifest into existence.

Btw, Congrats/Bon Voyage with your life-switch to an island far, far out to sea! That's quite momentous ...

You're going to the right place to play out your Mud Pie thinking, slightly scaled up, coz there does appear to be only 9 Towns there. Is Guam P1?