The Real Debt Bomb Is Wealth Capture

Why public debt isn’t the threat—and what really is.

If you’ve read Jessica Riedl’s recent article in The Atlantic, you might come away convinced the United States is teetering on the edge of a fiscal cliff. The national debt is soaring, interest payments are ballooning, and if we don’t act fast—cut spending, raise taxes, slash entitlements—we’ll all be buried under the rubble of a debt bomb set to explode.

It’s a familiar panic. We’ve heard it for decades.

And yet, here we are.

Not only has the U.S. economy survived each new “unsustainable” debt milestone—we’ve grown wealthier. Much wealthier. Since the 2008 financial crisis alone, America’s total assets have exploded, with the national debt-to-asset ratio actually declining since the peak of the Great Recession. In other words: we’re still borrowing—but we’re building wealth even faster.

That fact alone should complicate the dominant narrative. But it’s not the end of the story.

Because the real issue isn’t whether the U.S. is creating wealth. It is.

The crisis is who that wealth is being created for—and the kind of economic structure we’re reinforcing in the process.

Today, tens of millions of Americans live in what can only be described as a modern quasi-feudal state: they own no assets, they rent everything—from housing to healthcare—and they are trapped in a system where virtually all power and upward mobility flows to those who already own the capital. Meanwhile, the national debt—the thing we’re constantly told to fear—is quietly fueling one of the greatest upward transfers of wealth in modern history.

And here’s the kicker: even as more of the debt burden shifts from the private to the public sector, we refuse to implement any mechanism to ensure that the private wealth generated by that debt contributes to paying it back. The government takes on more and more debt to stimulate the economy—but the lion’s share of the gains go to the top, who then fight tooth and nail to avoid taxation.

So let’s be clear: this isn’t a story about debt spiraling out of control.

It’s a story about a society that continues to generate record-breaking wealth—and increasingly hands it to a narrowing elite, while forcing the entire population to carry the cost, and leaving no path to recover what we’ve collectively invested.

That’s the real crisis.

Note from the author:
I’m not a trained economist. I don’t hold a PhD in macroeconomic theory. But I’ve spent most of my professional life reading, building, and analyzing balance sheets. And when I look at America’s national finances, I don’t just see debt—I see assets.

What follows is an argument for a paradigm shift: that we begin to evaluate our public debt not only in relation to GDP, but in proportion to the wealth it helps create—and to ask who owns that wealth, and whether they are helping to pay for it.

I believe this shift is long overdue—and that it could fundamentally reshape the way we think about fiscal responsibility, economic justice, and the future of American capitalism.

Debt Is a Tool—And It’s Been Productive

If we strip away the hysteria and look at the numbers like we would any business or household ledger, one thing becomes immediately clear: America’s debt has been working.

Because debt isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just a tool. The only question that matters is what it builds.

Public Borrowing Creates Private Assets

When we borrow to fund infrastructure, education, healthcare, defense, or stimulus programs, that money doesn’t disappear. It circulates. It buys equipment. It pays wages. It ends up in corporate earnings reports, real estate portfolios, and investment funds. It becomes assets—owned by someone.

And on that front, the U.S. has been remarkably successful. Since the Great Recession, we’ve seen a massive expansion in national wealth—even as the federal government took on trillions in new debt.

This chart tells the story that debt hawks never mention: even as total debt has grown, total assets have grown faster. Especially after 2008, the gap between what we owe and what we own has widened—in the right direction.

The Missing Metric: Debt-to-Asset Ratio

Rather than focusing solely on debt-to-GDP—which compares a nation’s liabilities to a single year of economic output—it makes sense to also look at debt the way we’d evaluate a balance sheet: as a ratio of debt to total assets.

That’s what businesses do. That’s what households do. And at a national level, it gives us a clearer view of how efficiently we’re turning borrowing into wealth.

Despite the dire warnings, the U.S. debt-to-asset ratio has been remarkably stable—ranging between 31% and 48% for over 60 years.
Since its spike during the 2008 crisis, that ratio has been falling. Today, it’s down to around 40%—well within historic norms.

That means we are creating more wealth per dollar of debt than we were just a decade ago.

Debt Productivity Is Not the Problem

This should fundamentally challenge the mainstream narrative. If our debt is skyrocketing but our wealth is skyrocketing even faster, that doesn’t point to a system in decline. It points to one that’s still producing—and even improving in efficiency.

So no, the problem is not that we’re borrowing too much. The problem is what we do—or rather, what we fail to do—with the wealth that debt creates.

If we were reinvesting that wealth into broad-based opportunity and using even a fraction of it to pay down the very debts that enabled it, we might be having an entirely different conversation right now.

But we’re not.

And that’s where the crisis begins to take shape.

The Feudal Trap

If the debt is working—if it’s generating wealth—then why does it feel like everything is getting harder for the average American?

Why are so many people living paycheck to paycheck, drowning in rent, saddled with medical debt, or stuck in jobs they can’t escape? Why is homeownership slipping out of reach for an entire generation? Why do people feel like they’re running a race they can never win?

Because in today’s economy, wealth is being created—but most people don’t own any of it.

Wealth Is Up. Ownership Is Not.

Over the past 50 years, as federal debt has expanded and national assets have surged, ownership of those assets has become more concentrated than at any point in modern American history.

The top 10% of households now own nearly 70% of the nation's wealth. The top 1% alone own more than the bottom 90% combined.

Meanwhile, the bottom 60% of Americans own almost nothing. Their share of the nation’s wealth has actually declined, even as the total asset pool has ballooned.

This chart shows just how drastically ownership has shifted. Since the 1980s—and accelerating after 2008—the top has pulled away, while the middle stagnates and the bottom shrinks.

A New Kind of Serfdom

This is the essence of the modern quasi-feudal economy:

• You work, but you don’t build equity.

• You rent your home, your health insurance, your education, your retirement.

• You pay interest, fees, and premiums—to people who own the assets.

• You are, in effect, a tenant in someone else’s kingdom.

This isn’t just about inequality. It’s about power.

In a system where assets produce income, and income buys influence, those without assets are permanently locked out of meaningful self-determination. They're politically weaker, economically precarious, and increasingly dependent on corporate landlords, monopolies, and rent-seeking institutions just to survive.

This chart confirms what many already feel: not only has wealth become concentrated—income itself has been steadily redirected upward since the early 1980s.
The top quintile has absorbed nearly all net gains in income share, while every other group—especially the bottom 60%—has lost ground.
And since wealth compounds the skewed income shift, this income disparity is the engine that accelerates the wealth divide we saw in the previous graph.

We don’t have to imagine how concentrated the returns on our national debt have become. We can measure it.

Modern Feudalism Isn’t a Metaphor—It’s a Structure

This isn’t just economic inequality. It’s a new form of systemic power: a hierarchy where the same small group owns the assets, controls the cash flows, and increasingly influences the rules.

And the engine driving this whole structure?

Public debt.

We borrow in the name of the people to grow the economy—then allow the gains to be privatized by those who already own everything.

The public shoulders the debt.
The elite capture the reward.
And crucially—no one is paying the gains forward to help retire the debt that made it all possible.

The Missing Circuit

If we've built the most powerful wealth engine in the history of the modern world—why are we pretending we need to hit the brakes?

That’s the core contradiction in America’s debt discourse.

The U.S. has proven—over and over again—that public borrowing, when invested into our economy, creates wealth at a scale unmatched by any other system in modern history. Our post-war prosperity, our infrastructure, our technological dominance, our housing and equity booms—they were all fueled, in part, by public debt.

Borrowing isn’t the problem.

In fact, the idea that we should simply “borrow less” is economically incoherent. We’ve successfully maintained a debt-to-asset ratio within a stable historical range for over 60 years—and much of that time we were even more efficient, generating far more wealth per dollar of debt than we do today.

So the real question isn’t whether we should stop borrowing.

It’s whether we’re going to complete the circuit—by ensuring that the private wealth generated by public borrowing helps pay down the very debt that made it possible.

The Loop We Forgot to Close

In any sound financial system—whether it’s a company, a household, or a government—you expect that the returns on investment will, at least in part, help cover the cost of that investment.

That’s what made America’s post-war expansion so powerful: a public commitment to investing in growth, paired with a tax system that ensured the wealth created could fund the next round of investment.

But somewhere along the way, we broke that loop.

Here’s what sustainable public borrowing looks like:
Borrowing creates economic activity → activity generates private wealth → taxation returns a portion of that wealth to the public treasury → debt is reduced → borrowing is renewed.

What we have now is a one-way pipeline:
Borrowing creates wealth → wealth is hoarded → taxes are cut → we borrow again to replace what we didn’t collect.

And ironically, much of that borrowing now comes from the very people whose taxes were cut.

In fact, as of 2023, over two-thirds of U.S. public debt is held by domestic entities—including mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and even state and local governments.

This means that the money we borrow to fund public investment is increasingly coming from the very institutions and individuals who benefit from low tax rates and high asset growth. We’ve replaced a progressive, cyclical tax model with a regressive lending model, where the government borrows from the rich rather than taxing them—paying them interest instead of collecting a share of the wealth they gained.

What Happens When the Loop Breaks Down Entirely?

If we continue down this path, we’ll eventually face a reckoning:

• The debt burden will balloon beyond what future public budgets can service.

• Calls for austerity will intensify—targeting the very public investment system that built the most powerful economy in modern history.

• And when we finally try to call in the wealth to cover the bill, we may find that only the elite have anything left to sell—and no one else can afford to buy it.

And then what?

• Do we liquidate assets at rock-bottom prices to foreign investors?

• Do we let the debt spiral until inflation or austerity guts the economy?

• Do we turn the entire country into a privatized rent-extraction machine to cover interest payments?

None of these outcomes are hypothetical. They’re the logical conclusions of a system that builds wealth on public credit, distributes it privately, and refuses to call that wealth back to settle the tab.

What Real Fiscal Sustainability Requires

Let’s be clear: most Americans should not be paying more in taxes. In fact, many should be paying less.

Why?

Because if you didn’t benefit from the debt-financed wealth boom, you shouldn’t be responsible for paying it down.

We need a taxation system that does two things:

1. Raises enough revenue to sustain and stabilize the public borrowing model.

2. Reflects who the borrowing actually benefited.

In a world where 70% of wealth is held by the top 20%—and nearly 40% of people own nothing at all—there is no math in which flat or regressive taxation is sustainable.

We either restore the circuit, or we run the machine until it breaks.

The Real Fiscal Crisis Isn’t the Debt. It’s the Disconnect.

The real danger isn’t that we owe too much.

It’s that we’ve cut the wires between public investment and public return.

We’ve let the wealth go up and out—with no circuit to bring it back in.

Until we restore that loop—through taxation, structural reform, or new models of public equity—we are not just risking a debt crisis.

We are guaranteeing one.

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It’s just one person, fighting like hell to expose the truth and give you the weapons to push back.

If you value this work—if you want this movement to keep growing, keep calling out fascism without fear, and keep fighting for the future we deserve—then I need your support.

Join the fight. Become a supporter. Every contribution keeps this mission alive.

Because silence is surrender. We do not surrender. We are #TheRelentless.

The Real Threat

It’s not just about debt.

And it’s not just about fairness.

If we continue using public debt to create private wealth for a shrinking elite—while refusing to tax that wealth or share its gains—we’re not just risking fiscal instability.

We are engineering collapse on multiple fronts.

Innovation Dies When Opportunity Is Hoarded—From Below and Above

Debt-fueled growth has created enormous wealth. But that wealth increasingly flows to those who already have it—and with it, the opportunities that fuel creativity and advancement.

The next great inventor, artist, or entrepreneur might be stuck driving Uber to pay rent.
They might be buried under medical bills.
They might never get the chance to try.

When wealth = opportunity, and opportunity is hoarded, human potential is suppressed at scale.

But the innovation crisis doesn’t stop there. It’s not just that new players can’t enter. It’s that the incumbents no longer need to compete.

As more productivity assets—capital, infrastructure, market share—are concentrated into fewer hands, the drive to improve disappears. With no real rivals, no challengers, and a system designed to raise near-insurmountable barriers to entry, the incentive to innovate collapses.

What you get then isn’t a free market. It’s a rigged one.

A calcified system where:

• Monopolies are protected, not challenged.

• Legacy players dominate not through merit, but through financial gravity.

• Disruption becomes impossible—because the door has been welded shut.

We are not only starving the ground where innovation could grow—we are salting it from above.

Social Stability Crumbles Under Visible Injustice

You cannot keep exposing people to the immense wealth they help create—while denying them any stake in it—without consequences.

This isn’t the 1950s. Inequality isn’t hidden behind walls or gated communities.
It’s on Instagram. It’s on TikTok. It’s in every viral video of a billionaire joyriding into space while teachers buy classroom supplies on Amazon wishlists.

The resentment is real. And it’s rising.

The case of Luigi Mangione isn’t just an outlier—it’s a signal flare. When people start defending acts of desperation as acts of justice, you’re no longer just dealing with discontent.
You’re dealing with a system that has lost legitimacy in the eyes of those it exploits.

Capitalism Begins to Cannibalize Itself

Every healthy capitalist system depends on one thing:
People having money to spend.

But as more income is devoured by rent, healthcare, interest, and debt repayment, less is left for innovation-driving consumption.

The very wealth we’re creating is making it harder for people to participate in the economy—undermining the demand that sustains the system.

This isn’t ideology. It’s arithmetic.
When consumers can’t consume, the whole machine grinds down.

This Isn’t Just an Economic Design Flaw. It’s a Civilizational One.

If we don’t fix this—if we continue to use public debt to enrich the few while impoverishing the many—we will not get a slow decline.

We will get:

• A workforce stripped of opportunity,

• A public stripped of hope,

• A market stripped of demand,

• And a democracy stripped of faith.

We know how this ends. We’ve seen it in history books. We’ve seen it in headlines. We’re already seeing it in our streets.

What We Actually Need to Fix

• The circuit: Public investment must be matched by public return—through progressive taxation, public equity models, or other mechanisms that ensure those building wealth from public debt contribute proportionately and sustainably.

• The distribution: Wealth must stop consolidating into fewer hands, or we will choke the very mobility that justifies capitalism.

• The illusion: That we can continue down this path indefinitely without consequence. We can’t.

We are not living through a debt crisis.

We are living through the crisis of what happens when debt succeeds—but only for the few.

And if we don’t act, we will all pay the price.

The Real Debt Bomb Isn’t What You Think

Jessica Riedl’s recent article in The Atlantic warns of an impending fiscal catastrophe. It’s not the first of its kind—and it won’t be the last. We’ve heard these warnings for decades: the deficit is out of control, interest payments are exploding, Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable, and unless we cut now, catastrophe awaits.

There’s just one problem with that story: it keeps mistaking the fuel for the fire.

America’s problem is not that we’ve borrowed too much. It’s that we’ve allowed the wealth created by that borrowing to be captured by too few—and returned by no one.

Yes, interest payments are growing. Yes, the debt is large. But if we’re going to talk about sustainability, we have to talk about the loop. And right now, the loop is broken.

We invest in the economy through public borrowing.
That investment generates private wealth.
But instead of taxing that wealth to pay down the debt, we’ve slashed taxes—then borrowed more.
And much of that borrowing now comes from the very people who benefited most from the last round of public investment.

This is not a fiscal emergency. It’s a distributional design flaw. One that Riedl’s article—and so many like it—completely ignores.

They focus on the volume of the debt, but not the value it creates.
They fixate on the burden, but never ask who gained from it, or who should help carry it.
They warn of a future collapse, while remaining blind to the systemic erosion already underway—in innovation, in opportunity, in social trust, and in economic dynamism.

What we’re living through is not a runaway debt crisis.
It’s a wealth capture crisis.

And unless we rewire the system to close the loop—to ensure that public investment results in public return—we’re not just guaranteeing fiscal stress. We’re guaranteeing stagnation, resentment, and eventual collapse.

The real debt bomb isn’t ticking in the Treasury.

It’s ticking in the gap between the wealth we’ve built—and the society we’ve abandoned while building it.

Join the Fight, Amplify the Truth

Because silence is surrender. We never surrender. We are #TheRelentless.

📌 Sources & Data Transparency

This article draws on publicly available macroeconomic and distributional data from federal sources. The charts were created using long-term datasets spanning from the 1950s to 2024.

Primary Data Sources:

• Federal Reserve – Financial Accounts of the United States

  • Debt of Nonfinancial Sectors, 1952–2024

  • Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations, 1952–2024

• U.S. Census Bureau – Wealth and Asset Ownership Publications

  • Census Wealth Publications

• U.S. Census Bureau – Income in the United States: 2023

  • Table A-5: Share of Equivalence-Adjusted Income

• Peter G. Peterson Foundation / U.S. Department of the Treasury

  • Two-thids of public debt is held by domestic holders

👉 Full Spreadsheet Download
All calculations, visualizations, and data sourcing used to create the graphics in this article are available here:

• Wealth/Income Inequality

• National Debt Analysis

Note: The spreadsheets includes additional sources/data not directly used in this article, as part of a broader dataset prepared for future analysis.