Wow, it's not like a loan from wallet wizard Macro, these type of deals are high end financial transactions that get paid down over time, the US Federal Reserve doesn't just print out some bills and send them over in the next C-17 to Pine Gap so we can ship them off to the manufacturers. Think of debt at this level as being ownership of the rights to the future outputs of an entity/country, rather than something as basic as repayments in fiat currency stacked on a pallet like in the movies.

I think holy guacamole has asked a valid question though that people have clouded over with emotion ......... "do we have better things to spend the money on?" ..................... I reckon that better strategic minds than our own have determined that - no we don't have anything more important to spend the money on - and we need to invest in better technology/hardware now to maintain/increase the levels of capability demanded by our defence force.

But do they get paid down? Hasn't the GFC resulted in massively expanded balance sheets for the world's central banks? What Macro says is right. The payments to contractors can be made as if by magic and the government carries on

Usually these are just balance sheet to balance sheet type transactions aren't they? Isn't it just a number on a balance sheet until someone wants it converted to hard currency which is usually rarely?