Kinda blows my mind that the US is on a strongly antagonistic & isolationist streak in that context. Seems like a great way to turn the US economy (and prosperity) into a smoking crater

> Model not converging.

> “The model's trying to find what's called a fixed point where everything just adds up, everything's consistent, and it's not able to do that,” Smetters explained.

In other fields like physics or engineering, if your model (which is usually a partial differential equation etc) blows up it can mean one of three things:

1. Your code has a bug

2. Your numerical scheme is unstable

3. Your model is unphysical

Assuming the authors are competent we can rule out the first 2. Which brings us to the 3rd point; the article does not mention what the model is or what it assumes. Why should we assume that the economy is exploding and the model is right, instead of the opposite (economy is OK and the model is wrong)? Or even both or neither?

I am not even saying that the economy is doing well or anything, just putting my journal reviewer hat on.

We see that the percentage rose from about 12% in 2022 to about 21% today, a very sharp increase indeed, as the article points out. And the article's authors project it to rise to ~33% within a decade. But interestingly we see the percentage was historically quite high in the 80s (peaked at 29% in 1985) before decreasing through the 1990s and 2000s. So at least we have a precedent that it is possible for the US government to get a grip and manage to reduce the share of interest payments. How they did it, I don't know.

PS: when making this custom chart I wasn't quite sure what data series to take as federal income. There seems to be two options:

1. Federal Government Current Receipts, Billions of Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (FGRECPT)

2. Federal government current tax receipts, Billions of Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (W006RC1Q027SBEA)

I took the first. The chart has generally the same shape with #2 but I am not quite sure what the difference is. You can click the button "Edit Chart" to test various data series.

So, nothing crashed. The message simply is that this model doesn’t handle this case, so our (or that of this team of researchers) understanding of economics is incomplete.

That happens elsewhere, too, for example in Newtonian physics where the precession of Mercury deviates from what that model predicts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Pe...).

In neither case, that is reason to say the people involved are charlatans.

But these are very rarely good _predictive models_, which is an entirely different field.

Economists also have a tendency to lack practitioner thinking, misunderstand or grossly average actor motives, and more generally like to model every actor as an optimization problem, which rarely reflect real world scenarios.

All in all, I'm not really putting any weight on what economists models could predict of the future, though I think they have value in explaining the dynamics of past events.

Economists have been predicting for years that the Japanese economy would crash due to "debt". Hasn't happened. So maybe, just maybe, the model being used by these economists is wrong, which implies that they do not understand--or are misrepresenting--how the economies of currency-issuing countries actually work. In any other scientific field this would be damaging to the branch of science involved. But not orthodox economics. It just keeps on keeping on.

* https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19720313,00.htm...

From 1972.

Maybe this time it will matter?

https://youtu.be/beuseJ0Wm3M

* https://www.aei.org/research-products/book/fiscal-and-genera...

Maybe he's finally right twenty years later?

Feels like we’ve passed the point where debt is just a background worry. If the models can’t even handle where we’re at now, maybe the risks are way closer than we’d like to think.

I'm lazy, so ... over to the LLM:

This Hacker News thread expresses deep skepticism about macroeconomics, portraying it as unpredictable, overly influenced by perception, and possibly aligned with elite interests. While these critiques aren’t baseless—macroeconomic models often struggle with forecasting and can embed optimistic assumptions—they miss the broader point: macroeconomics remains essential and useful, especially when viewed as a tool rather than a crystal ball.

Arguing for the Usefulness of Economics (especially Macroeconomics):

It provides a framework to understand complex systems Macroeconomics helps us make sense of national and global phenomena—like inflation, unemployment, growth, and inequality. It gives policymakers and the public a structured way to evaluate cause and effect. Without it, decisions would be made blindly or based purely on ideology.

Policy decisions are informed by macroeconomic tools:

Central banks use economic models to set interest rates. Governments use them to forecast tax revenue, structure stimulus packages, and plan budgets. While models aren’t perfect, they are better than flying without instruments—especially in crises like the 2008 financial crash or the 2020 pandemic.

Imperfect models still guide effective responses

Critics rightly point out that models don’t always converge or predict turning points. But the weather forecast analogy applies: we don’t expect perfect predictions, yet forecasts still help us prepare. Similarly, macroeconomic insights helped avoid depression in 2008–09, guide inflation control today, and shape climate and industrial policy.

Economics evolves and improves:

Like any social science, macroeconomics adapts. New models increasingly incorporate behavioral insights, inequality, financial instability, and even ecological limits—areas previously overlooked. The discipline is far from static, and many economists are leading critics of outdated assumptions.

Bottom Line: Yes, macroeconomics has limits—especially when models are treated as gospel rather than guidance. But dismissing it entirely because of its imperfections is like discarding medicine because not every patient gets better. Used critically and responsibly, macroeconomics helps societies navigate complexity, make informed choices, and anticipate risks—even when the future remains uncertain.