With the advent of globalization, a more "global" (in a difference sense) view of debt may be necessary. Money is a claim on future outputs. But so are all financial obligations. If I have to sell my outputs to pay my rent, how do I eat? If someone has a claim on all the food, how do I get some? At the end of the day, what matters is whether we have a claim on outputs sufficient to procure the outputs we need/want.

Natural resources are not outputs, but they are in a sense themselves "securities" that give the owner access to outputs. Thus, to own natural assets like land is to have claims on outputs.

The national debt consists of claims on outputs. That makes "crowding out" the only material problem with excessive national debt. Indeed, debt is not excessive unless it crowds out. This is not the "crowding out" described in the article, which can be dealt with by printing money. It's the crowding out of goods and services that results from printing the money.

It is fair to describe the risk as intergenerational, but only because the arrow of time points to the next generation. Rather, today's debt becomes tomorrow's crowding out whenever the holders of claims on future outputs decide to make them claims on current outputs. That's why confidence in the currency matters, which is why confidence in the polity matters.

When all is said and done, national debt is an exercise in fractional reserve banking. A bank's liabilities trade as money so long as people trust the bank. Ditto, a nation's. Which is why getting our politics back is crucial to sustaining our national debt. The problem cannot be solved by having less debt. That's defeatism. It must be solved by being more trustworthy. All indications on that score, however, suggest that we are fucked.