The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow
Deuteronomy 28:12
Debt is problem world-wide. Every nation today is in debt. Between government debt, municipal debt, corporate debt, personal debt, today we could literally say “debt makes the world go round.” In terms of world-wide M1 currency (that is paper dollars, coins and demand deposit accounts) “money” in circulation today is $71Tn. Where as total global debt is $251Tn. Debt is almost 4 times our currency in circulation. And the US leads the way.
And if that’s not bad enough, given that all of today’s currencies are fiat currencies, currency itself is essentially another type of debt (think Federal Reserve Note – see below) so this is really debt on top of debt!
Since the USD is the reserve currency of the world (Will it be for long? See Inflation discussions), we have focused on US Debt and specifically the Federal Government hard dollar US Debt (you can also add future obligations/liabilities to that total, for example Social Security).
Discussions on Debt
- March 2021 Discussion: US National Debt ($28Tn)
- May 2023 Discussion: US Debt Ceiling ($31Tn)
- March 2025 Discussion: Debt Problem and Ray Dalio’s Book ($36Tn)
- US Federal debt level now $39Tn (as of January 2026)