Did you know that the US national debt will never be payed off? Seriously, it's not even mathematically possible.
The USD (US dollar) is not a redeemable currency. That means you can't go to the government and exchange in for, say, gold. When a currency is backed by an amount of gold, that is called the gold standard; the US dollar is a fiat currency, which means the government has a more direct control on how much it's worth- or in the US's case, the federal reserve. The Federal Reserve, or "the Fed", is not a government agency- in fact, it's board is comprised of several large banks' suits. It is the sole arbiter of the USD; when the government needs money, it borrows it from the federal reserve in exchange for U.S. treasury bonds. And there's interest on that borrowing. A lot of interest. In case you're a little slow, that means that the United States will always owe more money than it has in circulation, so even if all of the US dollars in the entire world were to be rounded up and given back to the Federal Reserve- not only would it freeze the US economy, but it wouldn't even pay off the debt. From the day the first US dollar was borrowed under this system, every American was now enslaved to the banks supporting the Federal Reserve.
But you see, that just isn't enough. Because the second half of this is even worse. Every time you deposit any amount of money into a bank, you are helping to inflate the US economy. Banks are not required to hold your money in their vaults for you to grab when you need it. Well, to be more specific, they're only required to retain 10% of your deposit. This is called fractional reserve banking. It is exactly what the name implies- they are only required to hold a fraction of your deposit in their reserve. 90% of your money can immediately be turned around and given out in the forms of withdrawals and loans. This is extremely bad for one reason- banks are essentially creating money out of thin air. When they loan out the 90% of your money, that money then can get deposited back into banks, where it will be fractioned and loaned again. Every time it goes through this cycle, your original deposit multiplies. A $100 deposit can be turned into about $1000 with this system. But that $1000 only exists on paper- when it comes to the actual paper money, there still is only $100 dollars. And that means that the majority of "usd" out there in the world actually doesn't exist, and as such it can't be used to pay back the loans borrowed to create the money in the first place.
What all of this means is that from the moment it began, all Americans are in debt. But it doesn't stop there. This system is not exclusive to America- a large portion of the world does the same thing. The only way to escape this debt is for everyone to collectively refuse to pay it.
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