Something tells me being shelled non-stop by the Luftwaffe leaving cities demolished along with a preceding decade of The Great Depression may have had a role in this. lol.

I think this article is the first time I've ever disagreed with you (respectfully, of course), but then again, economics is quite the soft science, so, it's part philosophy.

Britain's influence curtailed because they exported the biggest driver of their power--the steam engine--to other countries, and didn't invest as heavily in future technologies of industry. It's the same old success trap that's played out over and over again throughout history, like Blockbuster investing in stores after Netflix took them to the cleaners, or Kodak doubling down on physical photos as the digital camera revolution took off.

The thing about debt is, it matters who holds it. If we paid down all of the debt in America, there wouldn't be a single cop or bus driver on payroll. It's the foreign debt which is a problem, but that's only a fraction of the debt we hold, with the majority being owed to Americans.

Let me put it another way: if you gave your wife $50,000 to hold onto, as long as she didn't spend it outside of your household (supposing you share finances), you didn't really go into debt. The money just changed hands within a closed system. The analogy holds for domestic debt.

And last I checked, Britain ain't doing bad. The GBP is doing better than the USD and while they had to give up some colonies (good!), it's not like the country was totally ruined. They took out more debt and rebuilt after WWII, including a healthcare system that I'm tremendously envious of. :)