"Government bonds, for all governments including the US government, have never been paid back, with ONE exception (in 4500 years of capitalist history). As soon as the governments get into trouble, losses are imposed on creditors immediately, and often repeatedly. Since states survive, on average, less than 2 centuries, the default rate on government bonds (including government bonds of global hegemons), over all of history, is about 2.8%.

Therefore any government-issued bond that pays less than 2.8% interest is a net-negative investment.

Even the corollary, that government debt is safer than large company issued debt is wrong. Large companies only have default rates of 2.5%. The difference is even larger in the US because the US of course defaulted in practice when Nixon killed the Gold standard, and so did most if not all governments worldwide. Companies that had issued bonds at the time, most paid them back just fine. Same with WWII. After world war 2, a lot of large company debt was actually transferred back to the owners, whereas even the German state did not even repay it's postwar debts.

Even in cases where it's incredibly ridiculous and morally wrong, governments don't pay back debts. Take for example the German debt to Greece from WWII. The Germans decided not to pay it back, and Greece had no way to enforce this. They still don't, and now that Germany can impose monetary limits on Greece, they still don't see any need whatsoever to pay back their owed debts. And yes, the German debt to Greece FAR exceeds what Greece would need to get out of their crisis. Even now, the German state is not willing to even forgive Greek debt to the amount they still owe the Greeks."