Debt Rattle August 20 2026
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EdgarDegas A la mer 1863 • Economic D-Day (ZH) • UAE Cuts Ties As Iran Warns Gulf States Against Helping Washington (ZH) • Iran’s Latest Warning Signa
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 20 2026]https://sinfest.xyz/btphp/comics/2026-08-20.jpg
Trump Is Desperate to Save the Dollar Ponzi Scheme UNZ
Which is why he’s backing the U.S. with productivity, oil, and gold — the #Opposite of a Ponzi. You’re a genius.But Dollar — suddenly! One day! — from 101 to almost 97. Gold up $200 in a pop. Etherium up 20% in an hour. Oil at $88 or something. This is a day-spike, but does it MEAN something? Probably. Probably they’re prepping for the Sept 22nd market crash, set up out of Japan to crush Europe. However, we will experience it too. And shift the US$ to the new Tether/gold basis, off the Ponzi basis. That causes ripples, same as when they put it ON, in 1974, or tried the financial coup in 2008.
Speaking of doing coups for oligarchs: “Barack Hussein Obama said ‘I want this done,’ ” I want to overthrow the United States government. @CIADirector “All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper and Comey manipulated…”
This is why I always trust the CIA, the FBI, and all the Experts, if they are headlined by globe-trotting oligarchs like Bezos and Murdoch. Yup. RussiaRussiaRussia. When have they ever lied?
Starlink 11,000 satellites. We’re all going to die, aren’t we? There’s no escaping Skynet now.
““.. Kpler Says US Navy Gaining Ground In Hormuz ..”
I mean, sure, but they can always get a few missiles. We already know England will sell hundreds to any Nazi regime they can find.
Also in the article: Iran used Words. Lots of them! Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs… They did NOT use artillery and missiles though. I mean, two? Easily shot down? Maybe they weren’t even shot, maybe Iran lobbed them while having no more targeting gear to assemble them with. Who knows?
But they’re not out of “Words” yet. Okay. Words are a renewable resource out your air hole.
“• Iran’s Latest Warning Signals The Hardliners Are Just Getting Started (CNN)
They also have a lot of “Signals”. They are signaling the f—k out of this puppy. Direct, hard, firm Signals. …And no bombs. Okay well “Men” and “Armies” ignore trash talk. Only little sissy girls and the Media (but I repeat myself) pretend that Talk = Violence. It’s not. Clue phone.
Also, do they plan on ever attacking us sometime? I’m ridiculously disappointed in them. I mean, don’t they love us anymore? C’mon, there are MILLIONS of major unprotected targets in the U.S. and all U.S. so-called security is a joke. Can’t you PRETEND to care and hit at least ONE of them? Don’t let Trans-Furries out do you, Iran!
Do we need to mail you the definition of “War” here? Trying to keep up general respect for the “enemy” but Iran makes it so, so hard.
“A new generation of more maneuverable ballistic missiles with cluster warheads, plus innovative use of drones, indicates Iran has adapted tactics rapidly over recent months”This is true, but they have like TWO of them. Because they’re in blockade and depended on China and Russia who both bailed. So it wouldn’t matter if they had Jewish Space Lasers, if they can only get off one shot per month.
However, the MEDIA is their army, and Lloyd’s of London is their Commander. What more do you need?
“New energy routes would take years to build and come at a heavy cost, IRGC adviser Mohammad Reza Naqdi has told RT..” • Hormuz Can’t Be Replaced – Iranian General (RT)
Sir? Time Exists. That fact is in the PAST, not the Future. We ALREADY re-routed, past tense. It’s over.
Boy he’s got him some great WORDS though. The media lobs those WORDS daily.
“The Strait of Hormuz “will not be opened,” Iranian warned on Tuesday,”Hundreds of ships are already transiting. Sooo…??? Discuss? Why would we want it opened faster? Only Europe needs it. Please never open it at all.
“the evidence is clear: The United States, patrolling the strait with its navy, is gaining ground – and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway.”
This is probably true, day by day. Every day they have one fewer missile and boat to send. Without Russia and China, they’re screwed. So we can easily assume that Trump cut a deal beforehand in Alaska and at the China meeting. He doesn’t SEEM to have visibly given them anything, so they must not like Iran much either. Only the CIA and Media like them.
““We may win a few primaries, and I was delighted to see the Wisconsin outcome last week,” he said, “with the young fellow Crowley coming from behind.” El-Sayed, “only won by a very, very small amount,”
It seems impossible both were not voter-fraud in a very, very clean and serious way. They had all the signs the DNC establishment dropped THOUSANDS of fake ballots at 3am – worse than any Joe Biden 3am spike. Yes, it’s easy to get in a position where the Party’s Base has to be radical to win…but the general population of your area would prevent them winning in the general. This is constantly true on all sides. A rabidly pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Christian Republican would carry the same risk.
“A newly minted Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member defeated a Democratic Party establishment favorite who outraised the socialist by 20-to-1.”Ta-dah! If I were Trump and Musk, I’d PAY them to do this.
What do the DNC need to do? A: Have a platform and help people again. That’s it. That’s the magic. El-Sayed may be a nation-ending radical, but on the ground he’s just pitching wages and health care. …WHICH MEANS THE DEMOCRATS AREN’T. They are selling Orange Man Bad, because they have NO coherent ideas or policies at all, not even LYING. They’re like “Vote for me, you’ll get nothing!” DSA has the sense to LIE and PRETEND to offer something, which they’ll double-cross by giving you (no) Health Care in a bankrupt, Stalinist State.
Anyway, this continues that Trump has no issues over Iran in the midterms. None.
“eliminating “all of President Trump’s tariffs because they’re driving up costs.” That premise has a hole in it. Namely, the runaway inflation Democrats spent months promising the tariffs would trigger simply hasn’t shown up.”
Yeah, I was just going to add. In fact, even WITH Iran gas prices, general inflation isn’t showing up, passing through (yet). It’s only gas as the one-hit. Inflation isn’t great, but it’s identical to the last 20 years. Way, WAY lower — almost flat — compared to Biden.
“Axios — Dems Might Be Commies but Hey, They’re Sexy! (Stephen Kruiser)They’re the young, and the Left. They only live on Vibes. Never a fact to be found, because if you FEEL it enough, it just becomes true. Meta-contect of that Axios Insert Pic: That’s ‘I’m cheating on my boyfriend and would at the drop of a hat, that’s very cool,’ shows strong values of your in-group. Yup. True. And disavow. Stay away from anyone like this. This, btw, is how they got Justin Trudeau in, one of the worst, most racist, and catastrophic Prime Ministers of all time, with GDP going straight down, and women have yet to take responsibility for it.
Their argument – because I talk to them and ask – is that Republicans would vote for Sarah Palin just because she’s hot, so it’s just what we’re doing! 1) Ew, my God, no. 2) Even people who think she’s attractive, vote her platform, this literally doesn’t happen. 3) What do you think men are? 4) If this is bad — very bad! — why is it not bad when you do it? 5) Also the Media made all this up on TikTok, Sarah Palin or whoever is not really a Thing. That’s not “Reality”, woman, it’s 8th grade girls-table stuff. No one actually behaves that way. But it is to them!!!
But they did to elect Justin! Put him over the edge. But there’s no Canadian Politics anyway, it’s all “Selection”, as we see with Poilievre, and Carney being air-dropped in like an alien-squiddy. This has happened most of my life that none of the Prime Ministers seem duly elected, each one part of a back-room arrangement in defiance of the voters. Even before Malrooney.
But I’m waiting for answers on how Canada should best be saved, as well as productive plans on how the U.S. should act.
““At the same time that Fang was fundraising for Swalwell and sleeping with him, by his own admission, the files show that the FBI knew Fang was tied to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s notorious intelligence service ..”
The FBI refused to release this – and save U.S. national security in any way – because “Congressmen would be indicated.” Oh, Great! So there are so, so many OTHER Congressmen doing the same thing, it might embarrass them, and you’d rather have spies in Feinstein’s office every day instead? Go on, tell me all about this!
Thankfully just them. Oh wait, no: the NSA said the same thing yesterday, they had EVERY record that the 2020 election was compromised, REFUSED TO GIVE THE INTEL. Why? Because their one and only job is to CREATE Intel docs. But the only customer of the Intel Docs is the President, their boss and direct-report. So they “decided” not to tell him. Because it would be embarrassing, and ya know, saving the country MIGHT make them LOOK partisan and political. So they’d rather make Intel Docs and not let anyone read them. No one at all. Put them under a basket. Totally logical.
THAT’S NOT ALL! But wait, there’s more! So AFTER that election, THEN you release the docs, the truth, to the NEW (possibly erroneous) President and boss. But they felt Biden wouldn’t want that, you know, reading his mind and “Not being political” again, so they ALSO didn’t release them.
Then there was a Congressional Midterm, and it was an election, so they didn’t release them.
Then it was a Presidential election, 4 years later, and they couldn’t release them.
Then they’d dragged their feet so long, it was embarrassing, and looked political again, and couldn’t release them.
…You getting the picture here? Where “Experts”, “Government” had ONE JOB, and couldn’t do it? At millions and millions and millions spent, with all of Congress and the nation at stake, but ya know, middle-manager zoom conferences, couldn’t make a decision.
Here’s the deal: Your job is to make Intel Docs … FOR SOMEBODY. Whatever is in them, too bad. That’s your ONE Job. If you miss that, 1) everyone should be summarily fired but 2) Too bad for you. You had ONE Job, now you need to release them the second the first problem comes to your attention, that they weren’t released yesterday, when they should have been. That’s the new least-bad situation. 3) If it’s now a year from now, and not released, see #2, where TODAY is still the least-bad release date, whether you look partisan or political or not, you’re DEFINITELY going to look untrustworthy and compromised with each additional day that passes. 4) If that doesn’t happen, refer to #2 and #3, as every day ups the problem by a few percent.
And here we are. STILL Not released, the NSA looks so corrupt now they should be disbanded, turning a tiny bureaucratic pothole into a department and nation-ending crisis. Now it’s not released by them, but IS leaked in the news, with all their 5 years of daily internal dialogue and excuses about how “Now is not a good time”(to do our jobs) while the Republic falls and the American people are battered. While you make 6-figures and the average wage is $36,000.
So. FBI: can’t be trusted, allow all treason. CIA: can’t be trusted, Plans and Executes all Treason. NSA: can’t be trusted, hides all Treason. That’s why when they’re on Fox News, I believe their every word.
But we have a solution: More Government. That’ll fix’r.
And his all started with Swawell, where they could have just pitched him overboard and kept all the rest of the treasonous rats in place. Nope. Eventually 99% corruption is not enough, you need it to be 100%
“• Fauci Advisor Pleads Guilty to “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States” (CTH)
He conspired with nobody, since he was the only one charged. Like Ghislane. She trafficked kids to no one.
“Because the problem for the EU is that it’s getting so dissociated from the realities and concerns of its own people that even the pure data wonks are starting to sound the alarm.”As we said every day since before 1999. Before they even existed. Right Again, it was so, so easy to see.
“When fully ramped, this factory will pump out 10 million humanoid robots per year “
We don’t need 10 million human robots on earth in total, so I’d say no to this.
Okay, they’re built and out: what do they DO? What do they eat? Who fixes them since they’re always broken, like all computers and cars are? None of your Window 11, GM OnStar cars work, do their basic functions at all, not even badly. So what can we expect his robots to NOT do? Wash dishes? I can do that for free.
No idea what goes through their crooked, demented little heads.
Oh, speaking of “Always broken, humans hate tech with a burning, hell-fire passion” there is a new tractor company with no computers. Because John Deere seems to be trying to cause a human famine as none of their stuff can be fixed anymore. This company is in Canada. Add it to all the kids giving up on streaming, buying the physical CDs and putting them next to their 33 record collections. THAT is how bad tech sucks. Musk included.
“NATO’s Plans for Total Global Dominance & The Bunker State | Nel Bonilla
There is no “NATO”. Problem solved. Trump fixed that and you’re welcome.
What “Bunker state”? I missed this entirely in their discussion.
I wouldn’t invest in this wandering interview. As an academic, all her premises are abstractions. Like, she actually has a random grab-bag of facts! So that’s a rare plus. But the facts make no coherence. “NATO is going to enforce…” How? How, Ma’am? NATO is broke and the combined NATO forces of Europe could be beaten by the Girls Scouts of Ohio. “NATO 2.0 moved out-of-zone” True, okay, I can accept that premise, but WHY? Who did that? It was totally illegal, so WHO decided this and why? “NATO demanded 3% increases (to bankroll projects)” No. “NATO” hadn’t paid their EXISTING dues for 25 years. So they weren’t “Increasing”. NATO 3.0 is run by the United States (they are European and incapable of acting or taking responsibility) who has STOPPED all payments and arms to NATO. So…what NATO? What United States? NATO has “Plans” — none of which has funding or has come to fruition in years. So, great. We all have Plans.
Etc. So if you already have a broken worldview and don’t update it, then this is the interview for you. All hand-waving abstractions. Best example: “Is NATO a driver or a Node?” “NATO is a Node, and they are building other military nodes, like NATO, in other regions.” End. Guys? THEN WHO IS THE DRIVER? Boy, that seems like the story here! NATO is a puppet of no essential meaning according to you, so who is the mover? The first actor? A: They have no interest in this at all. They’re not dodging it: Doesn’t even occur to them to find out “What’s going on.” “NATO” is an “Institution” and an “Abstract word” is enough for them. I named it, so that’s done, I don’t need to understand it and act too! What do you take me for? I’m European! I criticize things, I don’t “Act” and “Do Work”! “Working” is for Peasants!
We passively Opine on NATO, we don’t steer it!
However, not a CIA agent for a change. And she had like a dozen facts in a hour – one every 10 minutes – so that’s a modest improvement.
“ECONOMIC D-DAY”
a complete and immediate severance of all economic ties with Tehran.
Trump will unleash severe economic consequences against “ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran.”
————-
Copilot answerYou’re zooming out to something big here—
**“ECONOMIC D‑DAY” as systemic collapse vs Gaza as a lived, ongoing collapse.—
### What “ECONOMIC D‑DAY” would feel like
Think of a **global or regional systemic break**:
– **Financial:**
**Bank failures, currency crises, frozen credit**, sovereign defaults, capital controls.– **Trade & logistics:**
**Ports jammed, shipping insurance withdrawn, fuel shortages**, container flows collapsing.– **Domestic impact:**
– **Food:** price spikes, rationing, shortages in poorer regions.
– **Energy:** rolling blackouts, fuel lines, industrial shutdowns.
– **Work:** mass unemployment, informal economies exploding.
– **State capacity:** weaker states lose control fastest; stronger ones triage.It’s chaotic, but **not uniformly Gaza‑level**—because most places still have:
– multiple borders
– diversified supply chains
– some fiscal tools
– some infrastructure intact
– some humanitarian capacity—
### What Gaza is right now
Gaza is what happens when **economic collapse, physical destruction, and hard enclosure** all stack and stay:
– **Physical damage:**
~82% of structures damaged; large portions outright destroyed.
– **Displacement:**
~1.9 million internally displaced; ~60% lost their homes.
– **Economy:**
Productive infrastructure (factories, workshops, farms, utilities) heavily degraded or gone.– **Health:**
Severe shortages of medicines, dialysis supplies, insulin; generators failing for hospitals.
– **WASH / sanitation:**
Waste, water, sewage systems near failure; rodent and pest risks high; disease risk chronic.
– **Aid dependence:**
Humanitarian operations themselves are breaking—fuel, spare parts, funding shortfalls.
This isn’t just “economic crisis”—it’s **structural collapse under armed constraint**.—
### How “ECONOMIC D‑DAY” compares to Gaza
**Similarities:**– **System stress:**
Both involve systems pushed beyond design limits—energy, logistics, finance, health.– **Human impact:**
Hunger, unemployment, loss of security, erosion of trust in institutions.– **Time dimension:**
Once past a threshold, both move from “crisis” to **chronic degradation**.**Differences:**
– **Agency & enclosure:**
– Economic D‑DAY: mostly emergent from systemic interactions, even if triggered by policy or war.
– Gaza: **deliberately enclosed**, with movement, reconstruction, and economic life externally constrained.– **Exit options:**
– Economic D‑DAY: some states can devalue, restructure, pivot trade, migrate, renegotiate.
– Gaza: **no meaningful exit**—borders, airspace, and reconstruction flows are controlled.– **Reconstruction capacity:**
– Economic D‑DAY: capital still exists somewhere; rebuilding is a political and financial problem.
– Gaza: reconstruction is **politically gated**, not just financially constrained.—
### If you’re really asking:
> *“Does ECONOMIC D‑DAY turn more places into something Gaza‑like?”*
My clean answer:
– **Economically:** some regions could experience Gaza‑level poverty, unemployment, and service collapse.
– **Structurally:** without **hard military enclosure**, most won’t reach Gaza’s combination of:
– destroyed housing stock
– blocked borders
– controlled reconstruction
– multi‑year high‑intensity conflictGaza is **not just an economic failure**—it’s what happens when **economy, infrastructure, and freedom of movement are all simultaneously broken and kept that way.**
—————
Claude AI added.
Good context — this actually helps me sharpen a few things Copilot’s answer didn’t have, since this “Economic D-Day” announcement is very recent (Trump made it Wednesday, August 19, 2026 — this week, and there’s an active US-Iran conflict context, not just a hypothetical). A few things worth adding:
1. This isn’t hypothetical — there’s important context Copilot’s answer missed
This isn’t a standalone sanctions threat; it’s happening in the middle of an active US-Iran military confrontation. Recent reporting indicates Trump described Iran’s navy and air force as destroyed, its production facilities reduced to “rubble,” and its currency “worthless”. The announcement follows a pressure campaign the Trump administration has waged since April under the banner Operation Economic Fury, and comes alongside a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz intended to keep anything from going in or out of Iranian ports. So “Economic D-Day” is layered on top of a blockade and apparent military degradation — a combination, not sanctions alone. That combination (military destruction + blockade + secondary sanctions) is actually structurally closer to Gaza’s situation than Copilot’s answer suggested, since it includes physical/logistical enclosure, not just financial isolation.
CNBC + 22. The mechanism is specific and real — “secondary sanctions”
The “any country that allows…” language is the well-established US legal tool of secondary sanctions — using access to the US dollar and financial system as leverage over third countries, not just Iran itself. This is the same mechanism used in the 2018 “maximum pressure” campaign after the JCPOA withdrawal. Worth noting concretely: the announcement came less than a day after the UAE suspended financial and economic transactions with Iran, cutting off one of Tehran’s most important commercial gateways, reportedly after pressure from Washington on the UAE to crack down on Iranian financial networks operating through Dubai. That’s a live example of secondary-sanctions pressure already working as intended — a real-time case study, not a theoretical one.
RedState
CNBC3. There’s a contested framing worth flagging
Iran’s government has pushed back hard on the “Economic D-Day” framing. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the threat, calling it a diversion from America’s own debt and interest-rate problems, and accused the US of “economic terrorism,” warning the campaign threatens the broader global economy and the sovereignty of countries beyond Iran. That’s a useful counter-framing to include if you’re trying to reason about this even-handedly — one side calls it justified pressure against a bad actor, the other calls it a form of economic warfare against not just Iran but any state doing business with it.
The Hill4. A structural correction to Copilot’s comparison
Copilot’s answer treats “Economic D-Day” as an abstract systemic scenario and Gaza as a deliberately enclosed one — but given what’s actually happening (naval blockade + military destruction + secondary sanctions, aimed at a state actor), the current Iran campaign is arguably less like an emergent global financial crisis and more like a targeted siege-and-isolation strategy — closer in kind (though very different in scale, cause, and human toll) to Gaza’s blockade than Copilot’s framing suggests. The key difference that still holds: Gaza involves direct territorial control over movement of people and goods in/out of a small strip of land with a trapped civilian population; Iran is a large, resource-rich state with land borders, domestic production capacity, and alternative trade partners (China, Russia) that make full “Gaza-style” enclosure much harder to achieve even under maximum pressure.
One honest caveat: this is a live, fast-moving, and politically contested situation (US-Iran conflict, competing narratives from Washington and Tehran) — worth treating anything beyond the sourced facts above as provisional, and worth checking for updates if you’re using this for anything time-sensitive.
———–Both of those answers, (from copilot and Claude), are helpful to me, in trying to understand what is happening.
They tried to bomb Iran to death, says Prof Seyed Marandi, now they’re trying to starve us. But Iran is going on the attack. The only way this can end is if Trump carries out the agreed terms, including Israel out of Gaza and Lebanon
Russian shelling of Ukraine is taking its toll. Ukraine shelling of Russia is not. It is starting to show on the line of combat contact. Russia is moving faster with less risk. The acceleration is noticeable. Some really bad people are probably panicking. Say your prayers.
I was just watching Jessica Rose and Jeffrey Tucker. At 51:09, Tucker says that David Morens said in emails that he’ll probably go to jail, but he’ll be so glad because he’ll finally get to tell the truth.
Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson:Trump Declares Most Crushing Economic Operation in US History on Iran
A Mass Panic began in KIEV: a 50,000-Strong North Korean Army entered UKRAINE and launched an ATTACK
Just a reminder it was Raygun who ended federal funding for housing the mentally ill and incompetent. (Raygun was a democrat wasn’t he?) Did that not just release a group of disturbed humans back on the street. Ever wonder how mental incompetance became a get out of jail free card?
I have been musing of late what is the endorphin reward for aspiring to ignorance. Reading tweets latelly, that must be one hell of a high.
and to once again bore you with some numbers – divide 10 by 250 10/250= 0.04 or .04%.
Sapiens sapiens has two hundred and fifth thousand years of history. Modern man with the dawn of agriculture and writin, excluding Stone Age carvings, has ten thousand years of history. Everything from Gobekli Tepe fall, roughly, within this ten thousand year window. That is, .04% of human histroy is the time frame for this “piece of work’ that is modern man.
I have to remind myself of this each time the vulgar war mongers and adherrants to violence have an upsugence.
“Aim for the bottom, it’s always there”i beat them with my hands until my hands were bloody and then i beat hem with a strap, now i will beat them with a rubber hose – options remain open
There Will Be No Alternative https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/there-will-be-no-alternative
The world is burning up emergency reserves of oil, gas and refined fuels, while primary flows remain blocked, as if primary flows are being used, not emergency reserves. This will end suddenly, like Wile-E-Coyote going off a cliff.
Why are we being set up this way?
I remember the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo against countries that supported Israel in the September war. Americans were shocked, even traumatized, sat in gas lines for hours, started buyng VW Beetles, Toyotas and those little Honda cars. We were never the same, though most people now never knew those days.
This will be worse by all calculations. They are not difficult calculations, looking at what percentage of oil has been pulled off the market. It is more than 1973 and 1979 together. The strategic petroleum reserves that were put in place after 1973 are being exhausted, in order to re-create the shock they were designed to prevent.
The global financial system is stressed, chronically stressed, paying too much debt-service for nothing in return, except maintaining the financial system at higher parasitic cost every day. Financial systems re-set under stress periodically, about every 4 generations, like after WW-2, for instance.
Is this prelude to a global financial and economic reset? I have not been consulted or informed, though nobody except the 0.001% gets let in on these things.
The war against oil, gas and fertilizer is a war against people surviving. There will be some alternative other than death presented to us. We are likely to take it.Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-08-20
The Treasury blinked. Hours before a 20Y auction that was tracking toward the highest yield on record, Bessent doubled long-end buyback operations from $2bn to $4bn – and total US debt crossed $40 trillion the same afternoon. Gold ripped ~$175, the dollar hit an 11-week low, bitcoin cleared $70k, and GDX had its best day in 52 weeks. Everything else – Hormuz tanker turnbacks, the Kyiv mega-strike, Trump’s “Economic D-Day” on Iran – is running in parallel and got mostly drowned out by the bond desk...
..Treasury: buybacks doubled to $4bn/op, $40T crossed, 20Y auction tails anyway – The 20Y priced at 5.204% vs 5.199% WI – a 0.5bp tail, biggest since February, despite the intervention (zerohedge). Without it, the auction would have been the highest-yielding 20Y on record; it closed just inside the Oct ’23 print of 5.245% (zerohedge).
30Y fell ~9bps to 5.196%, 10Y to 4.647%; the 30Y fixed mortgage reached 6.75% on Tuesday, against a 10Y that traded below 4% before the Iran war began in late February (shanaka86)...
..Interest cost: total US interest now $1.4tn, on track to pass Social Security’s $1.6tn by 2028 (zerohedge). That’s $3.8bn/day, versus $3.1bn on Medicare and $2.5bn on defense (KobeissiLetter). Monday’s semi-annual coupon payment was $85bn – the largest on record (zerohedge)...
..Structural frame of the day from TaviCosta: US debt-to-GDP is now roughly at WWII levels, but back then nearly half of Treasuries were backed by gold – today it’s about 3%...
..Iran weighs striking US military targets inside Europe. FT-sourced: IRGC has assessed strikes on Bulgaria’s Bezmer Air Base and RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus once its 3–4 week ultimatum expires (HormuzLetter, HormuzReport, zerohedge)...
..Hormuz: three tankers turned back in 24h against Axios’ claimed 10 mb/d southern route – Axios, citing US officials: 10 million barrels a day – roughly half pre-war volume – are moving out of the strait via the Omani coastal route, and “the IRGC can be a nuisance, but they don’t control the strait. We do” (BrettErickson28, zerohedge).
The tracking data doesn’t support it. LVision_Trading mapped the Aug 17 satellite pass and found only 2 new STS pairs across Fujairah and Sohar, holding the count at 3.3 mb/d on a 7-day average.
Turnbacks are stacking: UAE-owned LPG tanker Yellow Stone pushed back by the IRGC Navy – the second failed transit in 24 hours (MenchOsint); Indian-registered Vaughan turned around overnight (MenchOsint); three China-owned tankers carrying or loading Iraqi crude stopped the day before (MenchOsint). Bloomberg tracked the Sea V and Hestia both U-turning (chigrl)...
..Iran: secondary sanctions on “any country” run into the country they can’t sanction – RnaudBertrand makes the sharpest structural point: “ANY country” won’t include China. In May the US tried to sanction Chinese refineries for buying Iranian oil; Beijing’s Commerce Ministry issued a formal prohibition order stating the sanctions “shall not be recognized, enforced, or complied with,” and Washington never meaningfully enforced. “ANY country” really means “any country we can actually coerce.”
JustDario puts it more bluntly: the “never seen before” sanctions to cripple Iran’s economy turn out to be tariffs on third countries, one year after the tariff programme’s own results.
Tehran’s escalation ladder: an Iranian MP argues the best answer is withdrawal from the NPT (MilitarySummary); the IRGC spokesman says warheads in a new war would be “completely different” from previous rounds (PressTV). https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-08-20 Gold & Geopolitics, Daily digest: 2026-08-19
Two things actually moved: the UAE severed all trade, commercial and financial links with Iran after two ballistic missiles landed in the Gulf, and Trump ordered his envoys to stop talking to Tehran entirely – strategy formally shifted from “hammer” to “strangle”. Underneath that, the long end broke again (US 30Y ~5.33%, France at GFC highs, Japan 2Y at a 33-year high) and Asia went into freefall, with the KOSPI limit-down for the tenth time this year. Everything else – Hormuz transit counts, the diesel crack, the AI credit stack – is continuation, but all three continued in the same direction. https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-08-19Well, Duh… Media Accuses Hegseth Of Covering Up USS Lincoln Supply Crisis https://www.zerohedge.com/military/media-accuses-hegseth-covering-uss-lincoln-supply-crisis
Sort-of, “Details at eleven”… “Economic D-Day”: Trump Announces “Most Crushing Economic Operation Ever” Against Iran https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uae-cuts-ties-iran-warns-gulf-states-against-helping-washington-kpler-says-us-navy
Bessent: Aim Is To ‘Collapse’ Iran Regime Through Economic Warfare, But US Unlikely To Restart Major Combat https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-fm-says-trumps-economic-d-day-threat-diversion-which-will-fail-new-carrier
Futures Slide As Treasury Yields Surge, Erasing Bessent Intervention, Driven By Oil Spike https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-slide-treasury-yields-surge-erasing-bessent-intervention-driven-oil-spike
“Doom Loop” Engaged: US Debt Hits $40 Trillion As Treasury Enters The Endgame https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/doom-loop-engaged-us-debt-hits-40-trillion-america-enters-endgame
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, Iran War: Further Admission of Weakness With New Super Duper Trump Sanctions Threat; Israel Moves Against Turkiye Risk Broader Conflagration; Bessent at Odds with Fed in Move to Contain Longer-Dated Treasury Yields
To the Israel attack on Turkiye military operations in Syria. Douglas Macgregor provides excellent one-stop shopping in a new talk with Mario Nawfal. Recall that Macgregor is a serious military historian and has repeatedly admired the Turks as a nation with a strong martial tradition, and currently a very accomplished fighting force. Macgregor provides detail on how the Israel strike was essentially a warning shot, killing no Turkiye soldiers and perhaps not even damaging any assets. But Macgregor seems to believe that Turkiye has also not meaningfully bulked up at that base, as in Israel was trying to ward that off. Macgregor regards that as destined to fail.
Macgregor regards the Israel move as reckless, particularly now when Israel is clearly overextended. He also sees an escalation to direct confrontations as risking a much bigger regional war.
From a lightly edited machine transcript:
So that much I think we can say when this first began, this sort of Turkish Israeli agreement that we crafted in order to promote the dissolution of Syria, in other words, its liquidation and then its resurrection subsequently in the hands of our friends from ISIS…
I said that at the time I thought it was the Middle East’s version of the Nazi Soviet pact in 1939, that it was a temporary cessation of hostilities. It would not last and inevitably there would be an Israeli Turkish war.
So I fully expect that that will occur at some point in the future.
This is an extraordinarily bad time for Israel to cultivate bad relations with the Turks because the Turks, despite all of the unkind things said by both sides, have continually transported oil from Azerbaijan through Turkey down past Syria and into Israel. The Turks have also sold billions of dollars worth of goods, especially agricultural products to the Israelis. So Erdogan had practiced what he does best, which is to talk out of both sides of his mouth…This has been a sore point, I think, with a lot of people in the in the Muslim world. Most Americans are completely unaware of it…
Since then, we’ve seen lots of cooperation between the Iranians and the Turks to deal with the Kurdish problem. And the Kurds, of course, not all of them, but a large portion of them are exceedingly dependent upon Israeli support, arms assistance, and intelligence. And indeed, we cooperated with Mossad in a vain hope of stirring up a Kurdish rebellion/invasion of Iran. The Iranians had them targeted, destroyed them, and I don’t see much evidence that that’s going to happen.
And of course, the Turks had no interest in letting that be successful either….
It’s a very bad idea on the part of the Israelis because in the meantime you’ve had this new alignment Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and everybody has said well what’s it really about? Well contrary to popular belief it’s not about attacking Iran. I’m sorry it is not an anti-Iranian alliance.
It has a great deal to do with putting an end ultimately at some point in time to the Greater Israel project. They’re not going to allow that to succeed. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/08/iran-war-further-admission-of-weakness-with-new-super-duper-trump-sanctions-threat-israel-moves-against-turkiye-risk-broader-conflagration-bessent-at-odds-with-fed-in-move-to-contain-longer-dated-t.htmlFrom Iran: Exclusive: Reports of Iranian missile attack on UAE unfounded; Zionist false flag imprint evident https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/18/774638/probe-rejects-claim-Iran-attack-UAE
Israel outsourcing coercion to settlers in occupied West Bank: UN’s Albanese https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/17/774508/Israel-outsourcing-coercion-settlers-West-Bank–UN%E2%80%99s-Albanese
Qusra is where Israel’s lies about settler violence hit a wall – This method of ethnic cleansing, whereby settlers establish an outpost, force the families out, and take over their property, has succeeded countless times across the West Bank. In Qusra, the news cycle noticed before it was too late. https://israelpalestinenews.org/qusra-is-where-israels-lies-about-settler-violence-hit-a-wall/
Three Palestinian families in the Jabal Ras al-Ain area of Qusra in the northern occupied West Bank have remained under siege by Israeli occupiers for 11 consecutive days, in the latest in a series of attacks targeting Palestinian residents and their land over the years.
Since Aug. 9, occupiers, under the protection of the Israeli army, have surrounded three homes housing around 13 Palestinians in the town south of Nablus governorate, obstructing the delivery of basic necessities. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/collusion-between-israeli-army-occupiers-seeks-to-reshape-palestinian-reality/4032271 Aid workers under fire as drones reshape warfare – The UN is warning that aid workers face a deadly and evolving threat, with armed drones reshaping battlefields worldwide – putting humanitarian teams increasingly in the line of fire. https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168153
Israel preparing execution wing for Palestinian prisoners, rights group warns https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/08/19/368616/
Is it almost time to have presidential elections and negotiate a capitulation to Russia? Simplicius, Ukraine’s Economy Braces for Disaster as Zelensky Faces New Political Challenge https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/ukraines-economy-braces-for-disaster
China is serious about Japan not having (their own) nukes, but I wonder about Russia. Andrew Korybko, The Chinese Ambassador To Russia Issued An Ominous Warning To Japan https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-chinese-ambassador-to-russia
A coastal gas pipeline from Nigeria to Spain is planned. Andrew Korybko, The West African Pipeline Is Inherently Geopolitical https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-west-african-pipeline-is-inherently
Hellish: Ceuta Mothers Weep In Streets; Rapes Force Women To Flee; Kids’ Parks Smeared In Shit https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hellish-ceuta-mothers-weep-streets-rapes-force-women-flee-kids-parks-smeared-shit
Ceuta Cops Claim Invaders Are Dragging Girls Into Mountains For Gang-Rapes https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ceuta-cops-claim-invaders-are-dragging-girls-mountains-gang-rapes
How Can This Be Real? The Home Office in the United Kingdom is now handing asylum seekers a nine-page booklet and posters spelling out that rape is illegal, sex with children is a crime, women are equal to men, and you cannot mutilate girls’ genitals. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-can-be-real
Caitlin Johnstone, Today In Dystopia: “We Have Cameras Everywhere In That Town”
Today in dystopia, police have been wrongfully arresting people based on faulty information from AI-assisted Flock surveillance footage instead of actually investigating the evidence of the crime.
In an article titled “She Spent 7 Months in Legal Hell After Cops Used Flock Surveillance To Identify the Wrong Car,” Reason Magazine documents multiple instances of innocent people having their lives upended in legal battles because police slammed them with charges based on incorrect Flock camera data which could have easily been ruled out by some basic verification. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/today-in-dystopia-we-have-cameras The Orwellian Company Behind ICE’s New Electric Shock Gloves – “With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars.” That makes it hard for victims to sue.
“We have a saying: Feeling is believing,” Compliant Technologies CEO Jeff Niklaus said in one 2022 YouTube video. In promotional clips, you can see people losing control of their limbs, falling to the ground, and crying out in pain after a light touch from the GLOVE. In 2022, the company called it a “weapon” in Instagram posts. Since then, though, it’s downgraded the language to “a Conductive Distraction and De-escalation device,” branding the technology on its website as “humane.”
Human rights organizations like Amnesty International have long raised concerns about electric shock devices like the GLOVE, as well as other products that Compliant Technologies sells, like electric shock belts and vests, which the company recommends for prisoner transport, courtroom use, and use on “combative individuals” during medical procedures like blood draws. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/08/ice-shock-gloves-torture-compliant-technologies-jeff-niklaus/ The gelatin in the shots can induce alpha-gal allergy: BREAKING: First-Ever Study Links Vaccines to the Explosion of Alpha-Gal Syndrome
More than 90% of U.S. children are injected with alpha-gal-bearing mammalian gelatin before school entry, raising the possibility of direct sensitization or immune priming before a later tick bite. https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-first-ever-study-links-vaccines FDA Data Reanalysis Sent to HHS Finds Moderna’s mRNA Flu Shot Approval Should Be Immediately Withdrawn
We directly reanalyzed the FDA’s own data used to approve mFLUSIVA and found an extreme risk-benefit profile that is impossible to justify. https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-fda-data-reanalysis-sentJessica Rose Ph.D. (Please see top comment) What did Anthony Fauci mean when he wrote “GAME ON!!!”? Thoughts following meditation on this question https://jessicar.substack.com/p/what-did-anthony-fauci-mean-when
“Misinformation” disputes government narratives: BMJ Retracts 2024 Excess Deaths Paper for the Sin of Spreading “Misinformation” https://www.soniaelijah.com/p/bmj-retracts-2024-excess-deaths-paper
Sasha Latypova highlights an alternate form of “solving”: Whitney Webb: “Solving Racism by Vaccination?” https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/whitney-webb-solving-racism-by-vaccination
John Leake, NIAID’s David Morens Pleads Guilty to Concealing Records of Coronavirus Gain-of-Function Research Grant – Like Al Capone going to jail for income tax evasion. https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/niaids-david-morens-pleads-guilty
John Leake, What Were Morens & His Co-Conspirators Doing? – Analyzing what Fauci’s senior advisor was trying to accomplish with Peter Daszak and Gerald Keusch https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/what-were-morens-and-his-co-conspirators
$40 Trillion problem.
**Short answer:** from copilotIf you reject Trump’s approach to the U.S. fiscal and economic crisis (the ~$40 trillion long‑term debt trajectory), the *main alternative proposals* now on the table come from **bipartisan fiscal commissions**, **EU/CPTPP-led “third pole” economic governance**, and **traditional deficit‑reduction frameworks**. Each path has **major negative side effects** that differ from Trump’s tariff‑driven, protectionist, and unilateral strategy.
Below is a structured, sourced breakdown.
—
## 🧭 1. What “$40 trillion problem” refers to
The U.S. federal debt is projected to exceed **$40 trillion** within a few years, driven by structural deficits, interest costs, Social Security/Medicare shortfalls, and post‑2020 fiscal expansions.
This is not a Trump‑specific number; it’s the Congressional Budget Office’s long‑term trajectory.—
## 🧨 2. If you don’t want Trump’s way — who is proposing another way?
### **A. Bipartisan Fiscal Commissions (Congress)**
These are the most concrete alternatives. They aim to stabilize debt through negotiated spending cuts + revenue changes.Key proposals:
– **Fiscal Commission Act** — 16‑member panel to stabilize debt-to-GDP by 2039. [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
– **Sustainable Budget Act** — 18‑member panel to balance the budget over 10 years. [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
– **Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act** — 13‑member panel to fix Social Security solvency. [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget]
These are “shared sacrifice” approaches: spending cuts + tax reforms + entitlement adjustments.—
### **B. The “Third Pole” Strategy (EU + CPTPP + aligned economies)**
This is a **global alternative** to Trump’s unilateral economic nationalism.Chatham House proposes:
– A **permanent alliance** of market‑oriented economies (EU + CPTPP + Brazil/South Africa/South Korea).
– Designed to preserve open trade, energy security, climate cooperation, and monetary stability **without the U.S. or China**. [Chatham House]
This is not a U.S. domestic fiscal fix, but it *is* a proposed alternative to Trump’s global economic posture.—
### **C. Traditional “Orthodox” Fiscal Consolidation (Economists, think tanks)**
This includes:
– Raising taxes (corporate, high‑income, carbon taxes).
– Cutting spending (defense, subsidies, entitlement reforms).
– Slowing growth of Social Security/Medicare benefits.
– Immigration expansion to increase workforce size.
– Regulatory stability to encourage investment.This is the pre‑Trump consensus model.
—
## ⚠️ 3. Negative side effects of the alternatives
### **A. Bipartisan Fiscal Commissions**
**Side effects:**
– Cuts to Social Security/Medicare benefits (politically explosive).
– Higher taxes on middle and upper income brackets.
– Slower economic growth during consolidation.
– Political gridlock: commissions often fail to pass recommendations.
– Risk of recession if austerity is too aggressive.These commissions are “pain-sharing” models — everyone loses something.
—
### **B. “Third Pole” Global Governance**
**Side effects:**
– The U.S. becomes economically isolated from major trade blocs.
– Reduced U.S. influence over global standards, energy security, and monetary stability.
– Fragmentation of global supply chains.
– Higher costs for U.S. consumers and exporters.
– Increased geopolitical tension as blocs form without the U.S. or China.This is a *geopolitical* alternative, not a fiscal one — but it directly counters Trump’s approach.
—
### **C. Traditional Fiscal Consolidation**
**Side effects:**
– Tax hikes reduce disposable income.
– Spending cuts reduce services and benefits.
– Slower GDP growth in the short term.
– Political backlash (voters punish austerity).
– Risk of underinvestment in infrastructure, defense, and R&D.This is the “classic” alternative, but it’s politically fragile.
—
## 🧩 4. Why this is hard: Trump’s approach vs alternatives
### **Trump’s approach (simplified):**
– Tariffs to raise revenue and protect domestic industry.
– Aggressive trade leverage.
– Reduced support for global public goods (climate, aid, monetary stability). [Chatham House](https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/2026-06-02-saving-global-economic-governance-butler.pdf)
– Deregulation + energy expansion.
– No entitlement reform.### **Alternatives require:**
– Tax increases (unpopular).
– Benefit cuts (unpopular).
– Multilateral cooperation (slow).
– Long-term discipline (rare in U.S. politics).This is why many analysts say Trump has an “off-ramp” available but won’t take it — the alternatives require politically suicidal choices.
—
## 🧠 5. The real question:
**Do you want a solution that is:**1. **Painful but cooperative** (commissions, orthodox fiscal consolidation)
2. **Geopolitically multilateral** (EU/CPTPP “third pole”)
3. **Nationalist and unilateral** (Trump’s approach)Each solves different parts of the $40T problem, and each has severe trade-offs.
—
## 🔍 Follow-up question for you
**Which dimension of the $40T problem are you actually trying to solve — U.S. fiscal sustainability, global economic stability, or geopolitical risk?**Your answer will determine which alternative path is relevant.
————Q. Claude. Can you add to copilot’s answer. –
A few things worth adding, since some of Copilot’s framing is already out of date and a couple of alternative paths got left out entirely.
The $40T number just became real, not projected
Copilot treats $40 trillion as a future milestone. It isn’t anymore — Treasury Department data released Wednesday showed the gross national debt reached just over $40 trillion as of August 18, and this comes firmly ahead of the CBO’s earlier baseline estimate, which had pegged 2027 as the likely crossing point. Worth noting why it arrived early: forecasters now say the debt hit $40 trillion months sooner than expected in part because of billions in lost revenue from Trump’s own tariffs being struck down by the courts.
The Washington Post + 2That last point is a real gap in Copilot’s answer — it lists tariffs as part of “Trump’s approach” without mentioning that the centerpiece tariff program is currently dead. In February 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the president authority to impose tariffs, striking down both the fentanyl-related tariffs on Canada/Mexico/China and the broader “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly everyone else. That ruling erased roughly three-fourths of the new tariff revenue the administration was counting on — an estimated $1.4 trillion over 2026-2035. The administration has since been scrambling to rebuild tariff revenue through slower, more contestable authorities like Section 122 and Section 301, after revenue collections fell from a peak above $31 billion a month to roughly $22 billion. So “Trump’s approach” as Copilot describes it is already partially unwound — that’s a live, ongoing story, not a stable baseline to compare alternatives against.
Tax Foundation + 2Where the debt is actually headed either way
The debt is now growing by roughly $7-12 billion per day, having crossed $38 trillion in October 2025 and $39 trillion just seven months later. CBO’s 2026 outlook projects cumulative deficits of $23.1 trillion from 2026 to 2035, about $1.4 trillion more than it projected in January 2025. Debt-to-GDP is approaching 100% for the first time since WWII and is projected to reach 120% by 2036, then 175% by 2056. None of this is Trump-specific trajectory — it’s baked in regardless of who’s in the White House, which somewhat undercuts the framing that this is a “Trump’s approach vs. alternatives” question rather than a structural one.
Fox Business + 2A concrete alternative Copilot skipped
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s own reaction to the $40T milestone lays out a specific, near-term ask that’s more actionable than “bipartisan commission” in the abstract: target a 3% deficit-to-GDP ratio, which CRFB says already has bipartisan support, and address the Social Security/Medicare trust funds through a bipartisan fiscal commission. That’s a real, numeric target politicians on both sides have nominally endorsed — worth naming instead of leaving the “commission” idea totally open-ended.
Congress.govAlso worth flagging as a side effect Copilot didn’t mention: even the current congressional budget process is drifting the wrong way. CRFB estimates the House’s FY2027 budget resolution would actually add about $130 billion to the debt because of unfunded increases for military, intelligence, agriculture, and election administration — i.e., the “traditional” congressional path isn’t currently living up to its own consolidation rhetoric either.
Congress.govOne more dynamic worth adding
There’s a market-pressure angle Copilot left out entirely: rising bond yields are becoming a forcing function independent of any policy choice. Higher yields raise the government’s own borrowing costs, which is part of why crowding-out effects — heavier government borrowing pulling capital away from private investment — are becoming more visible just as tech companies are tapping capital markets to fund AI buildout, pushing rates up further. That’s a fourth “side effect” bucket beyond the three Copilot listed (commission pain, third-pole isolation, orthodox austerity pain): market discipline forcing a response before any deliberate policy choice gets made.
Spectrum Local NewsIf you want, I can pull the CRFB’s specific list of what a 3%-deficit target would require in spending/revenue terms — that’s the most concrete “alternative” on the table right now.
Where will be the pain at 3% – If you want, I can pull the CRFB’s specific list of what a 3%-deficit target would require in spending/revenue terms — that’s the most concrete “alternative” on the table right now.
Here’s the CRFB math, and where the pain actually lands.
The topline number
Getting to a 3% deficit-to-GDP target by 2036 requires about $10 trillion in ten-year deficit reduction — equivalent to cutting primary spending by 11%, or raising revenue by 12%, or some blend of the two. For scale, balancing the budget outright would take roughly $18.5 trillion — a 20% spending cut or 23% revenue increase — so 3% is explicitly the “politically survivable” version, not the aggressive one. Of that $10 trillion, about $8.5 trillion has to come from actual policy changes (spending cuts or new revenue); the rest is interest savings that accrue automatically once the debt path improves.
Americans for Prosperity + 2Where CRFB says the first half comes from
CRFB’s own sequencing: policymakers could get about halfway to the target just by “securing” the Social Security, Medicare, and Highway Trust Funds — i.e., closing their projected insolvency gaps — with the remaining distance covered by discretionary spending caps, health care reforms, new revenues, and cuts to tax breaks. That first half is the least optional part: it’s not a menu, it’s four trust funds hurtling toward legally mandated benefit cuts on their own within roughly six years absent action — Social Security’s trust fund faces depletion in about six years at current pace, which forces Congress’s hand regardless of any broader deficit target.
The specific pain points, spelled out
Mandatory spending — mostly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — along with interest payments, accounts for roughly three-quarters of all federal spending, and it runs on autopilot outside the normal budget process. That’s the structural reason there’s no way to hit 3% through discretionary belt-tightening alone (foreign aid, agency budgets, etc.) — those categories are too small a slice of the pie. CRFB is explicit that “everything needs to be on the table”: entitlement reforms, spending cuts, revenue increases, trust fund solutions, and health care savings all have to move together.Concretely, that menu means things like:
Social Security — some combination of raising the payroll tax cap, adjusting the retirement age, or trimming the benefit formula for higher earners
Medicare/Medicaid — provider payment reductions, means-testing, or slower benefit growth
Revenue — closing tax breaks/loopholes rather than headline rate hikes, which is the version CRFB tends to favor as more durable
Two complications specific to right now
The tariff hole makes this harder, not easier. CRFB has been blunt that closing the gap requires not just replacing the tariff revenue lost to the Supreme Court ruling, but finding significant additional cuts or revenue on top of that — so the $10 trillion figure understates the current lift if tariff replacement efforts (Section 301, etc.) keep falling short.
Congress is currently moving the wrong direction. As I mentioned last time, CRFB flagged that the House’s FY2027 budget resolution would add about $130 billion to the debt via unfunded increases for military, intelligence, agriculture, and election administration — the opposite of trust-fund securing. CRFB has separately warned against using the next reconciliation bill to enable more borrowing for defense spending or new tax cuts, which is reportedly under discussion.So the honest short version: the pain is concentrated in entitlements — that’s unavoidable given they’re three-quarters of the budget — with discretionary cuts and tax-break closures making up the rest. The nominally bipartisan part is real (Bessent and Trump-administration officials have publicly backed the 3% target, as did the Obama administration earlier) — but “supporting the target” and “supporting the entitlement reforms needed to hit it” are two very different levels of political commitment, and so far only the first has bipartisan buy-in.
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