If Everyone Owes Money, Who Is Owed?
Debt, Dollars, BRICS, and the Mathematics Politicians Won’t Explain
By The Craig Bushon Show Media Team
There is a deceptively simple question circulating online that cuts straight through the noise of modern economics:
If everyone owes money, who exactly is owed?
At first glance, it sounds like a clever riddle. In reality, it exposes one of the most misunderstood systems in the modern world. Governments are buried in debt. Households feel trapped by it. Corporations depend on it. And yet the system continues to operate—smoothly on the surface, precariously underneath.
To understand why, you have to stop thinking about debt as a household problem and start seeing it for what it really is: the backbone of the global financial system.
This is not accidental.
It is structural.
Why nearly every country is in debt
Modern governments are designed to borrow.
Permanent structural deficits are the norm, not the exception. Defense, infrastructure, healthcare, pensions, disaster response, and interest payments themselves grow faster than tax revenues. Raising taxes aggressively is politically toxic. Cutting spending threatens reelection. Borrowing fills the gap.
Debt also functions as an economic shock absorber. During recessions, revenues fall while spending rises. During wars, pandemics, and financial crises, borrowing explodes. COVID-era spending permanently lifted global debt to historic levels.
Then there is demographics. Aging populations mean fewer workers supporting more retirees, placing extraordinary strain on pension and healthcare systems. Debt bridges promises made decades ago with revenues that no longer exist.
Debt is not policy failure.
It is policy default.
How much debt are we talking about
Scale changes the rules.
As of early 2026, total global debt is estimated at approximately $338 trillion, roughly three times the size of the entire world economy. This figure includes government, household, and corporate borrowing and reflects years of crisis-driven spending layered on top of long-standing structural deficits.
Global public (government) debt alone exceeds $100 trillion.
The United States now carries more than $38 trillion in national debt as of January 2026, making it the largest single sovereign borrower in human history. This figure continues to rise not because of emergency spending, but because structural deficits and accelerating interest costs are now embedded in the system.
At this scale, the question is no longer “how do we pay this back?”
The real question becomes: what happens when the system depends on debt never shrinking?
If everyone owes, who is owed?
Debt is always someone else’s asset.
Government bonds do not disappear into thin air. They sit on balance sheets as “safe” assets held by pension funds, insurance companies, banks, mutual funds, and central banks.
Most Americans own government debt indirectly through retirement accounts, pensions, and investment funds. In a very real sense, the government owes money to its own citizens—just unevenly and indirectly.
Foreign holders exist, but the relationship is interdependent rather than conspiratorial. One nation’s debt becomes another nation’s reserve asset. This is how the global system balances itself.
Global debt is not a single bill waiting to be paid. It is a web of promises that also function as savings, collateral, and financial stability.
Who built this system
No single architect designed global debt. It evolved.
Governments have borrowed for centuries, often to fund wars and infrastructure. What changed after World War II was permanence and scale. Sovereign borrowing became normalized as a standing feature of economic management.
When the United States severed the dollar’s link to gold in 1971, money itself became elastic. Credit expanded. Financial markets deepened. Debt stopped being temporary and became foundational.
This was not a conspiracy.
It was a trade-off.
Flexibility and growth were prioritized over long-term discipline.
Can the debt ever be paid off?
The honest answer is no—not globally, and not in the way most people think.
If global debt were suddenly paid off, the financial system would implode. Banks would lose core assets. Pension funds would lose income streams. Insurance models would break. Governments would lose the “risk-free” asset that anchors modern markets.
Debt is not just a liability.
It is the raw material of modern finance.
What governments actually aim for is sustainability, not elimination:
• Economic growth faster than debt growth
• Manageable interest costs
• Continuous refinancing
• Occasional inflation to reduce the real burden
• In extreme cases, restructuring
This reality leads directly into one of the most persistent political deceptions in modern elections.
The political deception of “we’ll pay off the debt”
Every election cycle, voters hear the same comforting promises:
“We’ll pay down the debt.”
“We’ll balance the budget.”
“We’ll finally pay off what we owe.”
It sounds responsible.
It sounds prudent.
And it is deeply misleading.
Politicians deliberately blur the line between household debt and sovereign debt. Most Americans correctly understand debt at a family level: spend less, earn more, pay it down. That logic does not apply cleanly to a federal government with no expiration date, that issues its own currency, and that sits at the center of the global financial system.
When politicians promise to “pay off the national debt,” they rely on that confusion.
What “paying off the debt” would actually require
To meaningfully reduce the national debt in absolute terms—not just slow its growth—one or more of the following would have to occur:
• Major tax increases
• Deep cuts to entitlement programs
• Significant reductions in defense and discretionary spending
• Sustained budget surpluses for many years
• Or some combination of all of the above
Candidates understand this reality. They also understand that openly campaigning on higher taxes and fewer benefits is politically radioactive.
So instead, they promise an outcome without explaining the cost.
The math behind “healthy” debt that voters are never shown
There is no magic debt number where everything suddenly becomes unsafe.
What actually matters is one simple relationship:
How fast the economy grows versus how expensive the debt is to carry.
If economic growth keeps pace with interest costs, debt becomes easier to manage—even as the total dollar amount rises. When interest costs grow faster than the economy, debt tightens its grip.
That is why economists focus on debt relative to GDP. GDP is the nation’s income. Debt is the obligation.
A large debt in a fast-growing economy is far less dangerous than a smaller debt in a stagnant one.
When debt quietly becomes dangerous
Debt becomes a real problem when interest costs grow faster than the economy.
At that point:
• More tax dollars go to interest instead of public services
• Fewer options exist during crises
• Pressure builds to raise taxes, cut benefits, or allow inflation
This is why interest payments matter more than the headline debt number. When interest crowds out everything else, flexibility disappears.
That loss of flexibility—not bankruptcy—is the real danger zone.
Where global critical mass begins
The global system will not fracture first in the United States.
It will break at the edges—emerging markets borrowing in foreign currencies, nations with shrinking populations, economies exposed to rising interest rates. Those failures spread through banking systems, trade networks, commodity markets, and currencies.
The United States then absorbs the shock—often by borrowing more to stabilize the system.
Global debt feeds U.S. debt.
And the cycle tightens.
How the BRICS nations factor into this system
BRICS is often portrayed as an imminent threat to the U.S. dollar. That framing is exaggerated—but incomplete.
BRICS is not a unified currency bloc capable of replacing the dollar. Its members have conflicting interests, incompatible monetary systems, and uneven financial depth.
What BRICS represents instead is gradual insulation from dollar dependence.
Through bilateral trade settlement, gold accumulation, reserve diversification, and parallel financial institutions, BRICS nations are reducing automatic dollar usage at the margins.
In a low-debt world, that would be manageable.
In a high-debt world, it matters.
Reduced foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries means higher interest rates, higher debt-service costs, and greater reliance on domestic savings and the Federal Reserve.
BRICS does not break the system.
It removes slack from it.
And in a leveraged system, lost slack is where pressure builds.
The uncomfortable truth
So if everyone owes money, who is owed?
Everyone—and no one—at the same time.
Governments owe citizens. Citizens owe banks. Banks owe depositors. Pension funds depend on government bonds. Central banks hold sovereign debt as assets. Nations owe other nations.
The entire structure depends on confidence that tomorrow will resemble today closely enough for the promises to hold.
The real danger is not debt itself.
It is pretending it can be erased with slogans.
Or explained away with campaign rhetoric.
Or ignored because the consequences are slow.
Because when confidence breaks, the question changes.
It stops being “Who is owed?”
And becomes “Who pays?”
Bottom line: we don’t just follow the headlines… we read between the lines to get to the bottom line of what’s really going on.
Editorial and Financial Disclosure Notice
This article is an opinion-based investigative analysis produced by The Craig Bushon Show Media Team for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The views expressed reflect editorial judgment based on publicly available information, economic principles, and historical context at the time of publication. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making financial or policy decisions. The Craig Bushon Show and its contributors assume no liability for actions taken based on this content.
