What Happens When You Borrow More than you can Afford?

As a macro tourist - think of the US Balance Sheet in these terms:

RED LINE = Cash Flow from the gross domestic product (all the production we have to potentially earn income to pay a debt a country)

BLUE LINE = Liabilities from our borrowing commitments (all the money that's already spent for social security, running the government, etc. that we think of as debt)

If this were a consumer - this would be impossible. We would learn a hard lesson called bankruptcy and we'd start over... being more careful to not spend more than you make.

If you'd like to see our borrowing in real-time: https://www.usdebtclock.org/