We finally did it. We crossed 40 trillion dollars ($40,000,000,000,000) in national public debt [1] on August 18, 2026. Congratulations to all the people who said we could get there if our politicians were just a little more irresponsible, foolish, short-sighted, careless, feckless, and every other way to describe our national march toward the cliff. We did it at even a faster pace than anticipated. Now, we can get to 80 trillion even faster. Forward, March over the Cliff into the Economic Collapse, Fellow Americans!
As you are reading this, the United States has already crossed a critical milestone: The United States national debt exceeds 40 trillion dollars. (To see the debt accumulate in real time, visit https://usdebtclock.org [2]. There is a screen capture taken at 7 AM on September 1, 02026 at teh top of this article.) I started writing this series in mid-August as I was writing a separate article on the future of the economy and how individuals can survive one of the most common causes of personal economic collapse: unemployment. As I was writing that article series, I quickly realized that the national debt surpassing 40 trillion dollars deserves its own article. To do otherwise would be to minimize a very important signpost on the road to our country’s economic collapse.
The most common cause of national economic collapse is debt and overspending, and this will likely collapse our country. You can always have something exotic and exogenous destroy the country like a nuclear strike or an errant asteroid, but the debt collapse scenario is so likely to happen that it has reached the state of a foregone conclusion. As I was finishing up this first half of the article, we crossed the 40 trillion dollar milestone. It happened even faster than even I could anticipate.
Picnics and Potato Salad
You may wonder what picnics and potato salad have to do with the national debt and economic collapse thinking that you will receive a food recipe instead of what could be the perfect analogy for a potential future economic collapse of the United States.
Freshly made potato salad is not dangerous on its own and commercially prepared mayonnaise contrary to much popular belief is actually an inhibitor instead of catalyst of bacterial multiplication because of how it is manufactured. It is usually the time and temperature of the other ingredients which can cause problems. There is a critical danger zone with foods where if they are held between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. (With commercial food storage preparations, the danger zone is between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit) with special attention above 90 degrees where one hour is sufficient to have sufficient bacterial multiplication to cause food poisoning. The temperature of around 100 degrees is said to be a peak environment for a certain type of bacteria to have an ideal zone in which to multiply.
A good way to think about this analogy is the doubling effect. Owing someone a dollar is relatively easy to pay back, but if you owed a million dollars it would likely be much more difficult to pay back. If a dollar is doubled every day, by the eleventh day it reaches over a thousand dollars which is still an attainable sum for many people, but by the 21st day it reaches over a million dollars. A few stray bacteria are not usually dangerous to most non-immunocompromised individuals, but when doubled repeatedly with each doubling often taking minutes it becomes dangerous as large colonies of bacteria multiply that can easily overwhelm your immune system.
You are not a buzzard eating carrion who has a stomach acidity of close to zero on the pH scale which can dissolve small bits of metal along with the bacterial and viral soup usually found in roadkill. Cows can develop “hardware disease” by swallowing metal, but buzzards often treat small bits of metal as just a little dietary variety. Government debt, when doubled sufficiently, becomes completely deadly to its hosting country. It depends on the level like a bacterial buffet of once cold salads leaving their safe zone entering the critical danger zone. Currently, at 40 trillion dollars in debt and doubled will be 80 trillion then 160 trillion then 320 trillion. Crossing each one of these barriers is a realistic possibility in the years and decades ahead.
sovereign debt in historical context
It is unknown if any of these barriers or an even earlier one will be a trigger to a sovereign debt crisis and default. No empire has lasted forever and no fiat currency has survived a century on its own. We are a little over a half century into our fiat experience and almost everything except most electronics has increased dramatically from cars to housing to food to medical care. I know there are some who will write what about the Pound Sterling. The Pound has not been a true pound sterling for centuries. A Pound used to be a literal pound of sterling silver hence the name.
For about 780 years until the later stages of Henry VIII’s reign, a British pound was equivalent to 240 silver pennies. As often happens when governments needed revenue, they debase their currencies stretching it by adding more base metals and reducing their precious metals. In England, the British completely debased their common coinage removing the silver in 1947 as the United States did in 1965 first for quarters and dimes and then for half-dollars by 1971. There was debasement along the way in Britain such as in 1920 when the silver was reduced from sterling (92.5 percent) to 50 percent. Many economic historians would say that the collapse of Bretton-Woods system in 1971 which involving pegging a country’s currency to a quasi-gold standard would be the start of the fiat system, so no state currency is currently backed by gold. The Swiss France was the last major currency to leave the a quasi-gold standard which it did in the year 2000.
A government borrowing money for needed projects and financing them over the long term could be a positive and productive idea much like potato salad stored at proper temperatures. Individual debt is almost always not recommended, but governmental debt to a limited degree could be productive especially in the early stages of forming a government. Overall debt for governments tend to get out of control as founding generations depart this mortal coil and generations who had nothing do to with the initial sacrifice start voting themselves financial resources from the “government” which in reality is taking from a productive person’s pocket often to line the pocket of someone else with a small portion going to a project. Private competent individuals are almost always more effective than a government building something.
One of the ways the United States became a creditor nation was because it did not repudiate its debts. It became a trusted source to lend money to as it paid its bills and lived within its means. The United States government for the first time and only time achieved a National Debt of 0 Dollars paying it off until the stewardship of President Andrew Jackson in 1835. Within a year, the United States borrowed more with multiple large additions during wars declared and undeclared with about 85 percent of all the debt added within the last 25 years! Most readers have been around for almost all of the debt that now threatens to sink us being added within just the past generation. It is startling to think of the sheer fiscal insanity of the last 25 years.
Most nations after they have a revolution the debts incurred are usually wiped away in the aftermath of the revolution. The infant United States did the opposite and assumed these state and pre-federal liabilities as supported by Alexander Hamilton in his “First Report on Public Credit.” During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress printed a currency called the “Continental.” This currency was eventually hyperinflated away falling to a low of 1 cent per dollar officially, but in reality it often traded for a 1000 continentals to 1 dollar in gold or silver. Some people used the Continentals for wall paper, but eventually this currency was actually bought back during a demonetization with some people benefiting greatly. The average person who held continentals during the Revolutionary period lost upwards of 99 percent, but a few speculators made fortunes along with purchasing bonds or currency at deflated prices that eventually were redeemed into United States treasury bonds at often much higher values than they purchased them.
There are a few takeaways for individuals that are often applicable:
1. Paper currency is usually inflated away through ongoing inflation or hyperinflation.
2. Most governments traditionally repudiate their debt at some point, but occasionally there is a exception.
3. Individuals who owned gold or silver during this period were generally protected from the ravages of hyperinflation. The Continental generally fell to about 40 paper dollars per silver dollar or around a 97.5 percent loss before generally not being used in transactions. The silver dollars did not “gain” any value, but the paper dollars lost value. Holding the continental was a dangerous game unless you bought it very cheap and redeemed at a higher price. This was speculation and was never guaranteed. Silver and gold during this period were stable not generally subject to large fluctuations.
The problem is when borrowing gets to be too much. We are at the point of over 40 trillion dollars of borrowed money. President Reagan sounded an alarm of the idea of the United States crossing over into 1 trillion into national debt back in 1981. We are at a level of 40 times high. President Reagan was known as the master communicator and the analogy that he used was very apt to describe the sinking situation the country currently finds itself where he warned us “if we as a nation needed a warning, let that be it.” President Reagan in his 1981 speech said, “A stack of $1,000 bills in your hand only 4 inches high would make you a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high.”
The analogy is actually more vivid with the stack reaching 670 miles high if using 100 dollars bills as you would need ten times as many instead of $1,000 dollar bills (Back then, the $1,000 dollar bill there were in somewhat common “mental” circulation as $1,000 bills would have been known to former movie stars like President Reagan.) The larger denomination bills such as 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 dollar bills were removed from circulation in 1969. You can still often find them at coin stores and shows, but expect to pay much more than the printed denomination on their face even in well circulated, folded and crinkled condition.
The purchasing power of a 100 dollar bill has never been lower. A 100 dollar bill is currently the highest denomination now printed in the United States and this inflation reduced small denomination makes it even more difficult for people to easily perform legal business transactions. Think of how much easier it was back in the 1950s to buy a farm or equipment with 500 dollar or 1000 dollar bills. Now, carrying around large amounts of cash is difficult because even a standard banded package of 100 dollar bills is 10,000 dollars and that buys relatively little at a farm auction. Another common concern nowadays with carrying large amounts of cash is the possibility of “asset forfeiture” where you have to “prove” that the currency was obtained legitimately in order to reclaim your currency from the seizure.
How bad is it?
The sad truth is that you often don’t know how bad it is until it is too late. Every warning sign is there for an economic collapse at some point. It would be wonderful if I could positively give you an exact date or even month and year that it will happen in October of X year because it would help me too. The only alternative we have is to stay vigilant through preparedness, closely monitoring the situation, discussing it with other informed people, and to follow Marcus Aurelius the Great Roman philosopher and the last of the “five good Roman emperors” during the Pax Romana (Roman Golden Age) timeless advice: “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
Currently, our Government spending is out of control. People first think of “our” representatives in Congress which has an approval rating at about the same level as the lobbyists who also walk the halls of Congress (whose profession is involved in literally lobbying for taxpayer money and/or political favors and carve-outs for the people who employ them). Used car dealers poll similarly for comparison. If the public opinion companies would take polls of the opinions of toothaches at the start of a three day weekend, intestinal parasites, and ants at a picnic those would likely poll lower, but that is not saying much.
If this were a household budget with obligations all over the place far higher than income, many people would consider bankruptcy as an acceptable course to discharge the debt. Whenever previous countries have bankrupted themselves, usually the previous currency is inflated out of existence as the country is in its final rabid death throes foaming at the mouth (thickened saliva or even large denomination printing on lower denomination bills in the case of countries) and delirious from fever with hallucinations (believing everything will work out as more and more is spent while receiving less).
Everyone and no one around today is actually responsible for it. Much of the problems were created in the 1930s and 1960s and the people who created these now serious issues were born in the late 1800s to early 1900s and have been dead for years. Mandatory spending and interest is about 75 percent of the Federal budget with mandatory spending about 60 percent of the budget. Social Security created in 1935 and Medicare/Medicaid created in 1965 currently consume about 50 percent of the budget while only bringing in usually under 35 percent. This situation is only getting worse each year that goes by as more people retire becoming eligible for benefits and are not backfilled with even more people contributing. Since this is entirely a “thought experiment” consider how all of these federal programs share many similarities with a Ponzi scheme except they are legal just as putting little green pictures of political figures on pieces of cotton paper becomes real because they say so which is the root of the word “fiat” meaning force by government as a decree “let it be done.”
Medicaid costs between both federal and state about another trillion dollars without any offsetting tax revenue meaning that all of its money comes out of pocket or borrowed. Between Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare spending they cost over 1.5 Trillion Dollars more per year than they bring in with Medicare having no revenue. All of these programs have only become more imbalanced as far with more costs versus revenue and will only likely increase even more over time. This can be compared to bacteria in the potato salad sitting in the sun on a hot summer day. The cost for anything medical far exceeds the official inflation rate. Social Security at one time had so much revenue because there were many more workers than recipients. This ratio has narrowed dramatically over the years where now Social Security pays out more than it takes in. In a few years, there is expected to be a roughly possible 22 to 24 percent cut likely sometime in the next six years. As this would be politically unpopular, they could just go a little more in debt or raise taxes rather than try to live within their means.
Some Questions to Consider
Before next week’s conclusion to this thought experiment is presented, are you seriously considering the topic of how to survive a potential economic collapse? Surviving a hyperinflationary future is going to be really difficult, but first people need to be awakened that there is a problem. We have reached and breached a milestone on the road of national economic ruin and persist in our journey. Think of our nation driving a car and reaching a sign that says “BRIDGE OUT.” Instead of paying attention and stopping the vehicle, we are driving at breakneck speed to get to the bridge still believing that it is there and that the signs were all false. The question is when we reach the bridge and the depth of our descent. Remember all of my articles are Gedankenexperiments (thought experiments), not advice for your personal economic decisions.
One area which I will cover next week is of survival. How are you planning on surviving a potential collapse? In my family, we have a well thought out plan which most likely will result in very little disruption to our lives as I already live on a farm in a food producing area which is full of people who have been growing food for generations both commercially like our family and on a homesteading scale, have large amounts of food and supplies, and lots of technical expertise in survival as a third generation prepper. The only area where we are lacking in my family is finding me a spouse who is interested being a wife and mother.
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About The Author: Single Farmer is a third generation prepper living on his family’s farm in Kansas.
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Editor’s Note: This young man is prayerfully seeking a wife. He is from a very quality family. For those who are interested, he is offering an after-marriage gift of up to $50,000 to whoever introduces him to his bride with $18,000 after their marriage and another $16,000 to the individual who provided the introduction after the first two births of healthy children born to him and his wife, for a total potential gift of $50,000. For further details and a way to contact “Single Farmer,” see this link to his article posted on July 13th, 2025: My Quest for a Wife: I’m Willing to Move [3] and in his February 24, 2026 article on rural migratio [4]n starting at the bold section on “Continuing My Quest For a Wife”. He can be contacted at his family’s email of smartsimplepeopleATprotonmail.com (put the @ sign to replace AT).
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(To be concluded in Part 2, on September 22, 2026.)