The $40 Trillion Monster Under the Bed.
UNFTR Weekly Roundup Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here! Max Notes Stupid Math We’re going to pivot to more political brushfires heading into the midterms, but I wanted to put an endcap on our macroeconomic discussions from the summer. Let’s talk about our debt. I realized recently that I never really put structure to the argument that the size of the national debt isn’t really the issue people think it is; it’s the way we politicize it. It’s a logical bridge due to the weaponization of the number and our misunderstanding of the role debt plays in domestic affairs and geopolitics. To be clear, it’s a really big fucking number. Forty trillion dollars. Both sides of the aisle use it as a cudgel to rail against entitlement programs or military spending or to stake their position on taxation. Should we take more from wealthy people, poor people, states, the military, foreign countries? That’s the sum total of the discussion surrounding debt. All r...