LOL at this dude thinking that a mountain or a road or the idea of "technology" or the ability to tax the citizens into oblivion is liquid or even some kind of asset like a house would be, son.
In fact that's the way it works - you tell them what your job is and how much you make and they make a calculation about how likely it is that you'll do poorly enough in the future that you won't be able to repay them. Now admittedly that's basing it on their idea of your future earnings not your idea of your future earnings, but that's not important for your metaphor. barfo
People with gold, silver, precious jewels, etc....don't usually keep a record of possessing this wealth with dollar values...the Chinese distrust banks generally and hide gold for it's magical powers of bring good joss or fortune...my mother in law (RIP) kept gold under the floorboards of her old house until she passed away and not even her family knew about it....I think the estimate of 21 trillion is a fraction of the treasure kept off the books
When i hear all about debt, the one thing i think is stupid is most calculations seem to include mortgage debt. Sure, it is a debt, and people would be liable if the USA collasped, but what about those of us that have major equity in that debt. In portland most homeowners are gonna have at least 50k in equity now if they bought the house 2 years ago (and in many cases way more equity than that).
So the point of this is the government should sell $20T in assets to pay off the debt? Fine by me. They can waste half the money (hundreds of $billions) that would go to interest Payments on lefty programs, and refund the rest to the overtaxed taxpayer. The OP is utter nonsense.
