"The English have devised...

an extraordinary scheme for the military defense of their homeland, which is that they have no money." - Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, The Confusion, 2004 by Neal Stephenson

Had I been sipping a favoured beverage at the time of my reading these lines, I am certain that a not-insignificant amount would have burst through my nasal cavity and onto the unfortunate book from which they were gleaned. For if one were to make a minor substitution, replacing "The English" with "The Americans," one would have a Jan van der Meer-esque rendering of our current fiscal reality.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the definition of debt is when you (or an organisation) have made expenditures for which you lack the specie to render payment. In other words, you spend money that you do not have.

We do not have any money. In fact, we may be said to possess negative amounts of money. That's what "red ink" is. And yet, the government continues to spend as though the consequences of such policy belonged to the past, and not the future. This is fascinating, in the way that a flash food might be to a valley farmer - all is abstract beauty until that wall of water erases your pasture and home and life.