Treasury BURNS $24 Billion a Week on Interest Alone.

The United States Treasury is currently paying $24 billion per week solely on interest for its debt, a sum that now surpasses the cost of Medicare. This means that a significant portion—around 60-65%—of every dollar borrowed by the government goes directly to interest payments, rather than funding infrastructure, services, or job creation. This unsustainable trajectory is likened to a 'treadmill' with increasing speed.

American households are facing their own debt crisis, with a $1.25 trillion credit card bill. Defaults on this debt are at levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. This is primarily 'survival debt,' incurred for basic necessities like groceries, utilities, and transportation, with people borrowing at over 20% interest just to maintain their current living standards. This mirrors the government's debt struggles, but at the household level.

The stock market shows concerning signs of concentration and speculation. The five largest companies in the S&P 500 now comprise 30% of the entire index, leading to a lack of diversification. Many companies are investing heavily in new technology without seeing positive returns. Moreover, ordinary households hold an unprecedented 25% of their net worth in stocks, a higher percentage than in 1929 or 2000. These conditions suggest a bubble resembling the dot-com era, which saw a 78% Nasdaq decline.

A survey of 85 global central banks reveals a significant shift away from the US dollar. Three out of every four central banks anticipate the dollar's share of global reserves to decrease in the next five years. They are actively disinvesting from dollar-denominated assets and increasing their gold holdings, with a net purchase of 244 tons of gold in the first quarter of the year alone. This signals a fundamental challenge to the dollar's status as the global reserve currency, which has long enabled the US to manage its debt.

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, published a plan outlining a 'new American statecraft,' emphasizing the need to rebuild national manufacturing capacity, ensure reciprocity in trade, and for the US to dictate rules in the next economy. This implicitly acknowledges that America's capacity has diminished, a consequence of shifting from a production-based economy after Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, to one focused on financialization. This shift led to unaffordable essential services like college tuition and childcare for many households, highlighting the need to return to a focus on making physical goods.