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The textbook / Chapter 3

The $40 Trillion Question

Chapter 3 · The System · 7 episodes

About this chapter

The $40 Trillion Question

The U.S. owes more than $40 trillion. This chapter explains what that number means, who the money is owed to, why the interest bill keeps growing, and the big questions people argue about: can the country go broke, and can it inflate its way out?

Words for this chapter

Debt (national)DeficitDebt-to-GDPNet interestTreasury securitiesDebt ceilingSovereign debtHyperinflation

Start with: $40 trillion in debt. Who pays, and how?

In this chapter

  1. 01
    $40 trillion in debt. Who pays, and how?Deficit vs. debt, who we owe, and the interest loop.
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  2. 02
    Can the U.S. go bankrupt?A country that issues its own money isn't a household. It still has limits.
    Coming soon
  3. 03
    The debt ceilingIt doesn't cap spending. It decides whether bills Congress already approved get paid.
    Coming soon
  4. 04
    Can we inflate the debt away?Inflation shrinks old debt, and someone ends up paying for it.
    Coming soon
  5. 05
    Modern Monetary TheoryWhat MMT actually says, and where other economists push back.
    Coming soon
  6. 06
    What Bitcoiners get right and wrong about debtWhere the Bitcoin critique lands, and where it oversimplifies.
    Coming soon
  7. 07
    Will debt cause hyperinflation?Hyperinflation takes more than a big debt number. What happened in the famous cases.
    Coming soon

more pages as they're written.

Follow the moneyLive debt clockThe $40T debt, on one page (printable)Compare: deficit vs. debtAll video lessons