Well, I agree with Threegoofs on this. Your post didn't address his post. You went from blaming the national debt to blaming the decline of manufacturing, without even attempting to link the two.
I'd prefer that we stick to the OP, because that's a pretty straightforward question to answer; the "national debt" is not a debt at all. The government does not truly borrow money, even though it may look that way if you don't examine what actually happens with bond issuance and deficit spending.
The government simply emits liabilities - bonds - in order to deficit spend. They could just as easily emit currency, and nobody would call it "debt." Bond issuance simply means that there is another item in the federal budget, interest, and those dollars are paid to (mostly American) bondholders - just like any other budget item. You may not agree with the wisdom of deficit spending and paying what seems like a lot of bond interest, but treating it like a real debt is simply incorrect. The "national debt" does not need to be extinguished, and it would harm the economy to do so.
As for the American economy's ability to right itself by consuming more (rather than the government deficit spending more, I suppose), there are two big problems with that. First, it requires increased private sector debt, which IS a real burden on future spending. Second, our income inequality is structural, and merely telling consumers to spend more (and increase their debt more in the process) only exacerbates the inequality problem, as ownership (the rich guys) are the main beneficiaries of increased commerce. I don't see how you change that without major government intervention.
mises.org
