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It's an indefinitely repeating game, which is why it's possible to retain lenders even though everyone knows the eventual ending is default.
If it ever became clear to people that the system won't last past some date (no matter how far off in the future), lending would dry up immediately and we'd get the full effects of currency devaluation.
The value of a central bank fiat currency depends on the likelihood an individual will be willing and able to work for that type of currency in order to repay the loan. When people start working for bitcoin, they will need to sell it to pay debts denominated in fiat. This will dramatically devalue that currency. The game the united States is playing with 'accumulation of debt' is to maintain a well lubricated world market (globalization) where the dollar is required to participate. This partly is driven by fuel, but also of food and other goods. This world demand for the dollar is where the 'milkshake' analogy comes from, where dollars are constantly being 'sucked up' out of the US economy. This is not the eurodollar, that's something altogether more devious being run on a handshake by European banks. The US government can essentially accumulate debt indefinitely as long as it maintains inflation at a tolerable level. This is why they can keep raising the debt ceiling, double the debt every few years, but the price of gasoline, bread and rent only change 5 to 7% per year. The government sees an inflation rate lower than this a lost opportunity because otherwise the 'milkshake straw' might go empty and the unnaturally wealthy lifestyle of even the lowest income American will suffer (a.k.a. riot). The consequence of such a 'drying up' of the dollar abroad is to drive world populations to their local currency and this forces their respective countries to go back to systems like the gold standard which is a much worse alternative that concentrates power to the tyrant by way of the ability to control the gold mine. Bitcoin fixes all of this.
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My point is all of that can only continue as long as the participants don't know it is coming to a definitive end. It's really not a particularly important point, more of an interesting insight from game theory.
The application would be that if for some reason a large portion of global finance came to believe that the treasury would not be able to provide positive real returns on US Bonds ten years from now, potential lenders would cease lending immediately.
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