Market Wrap 22/08/2026 – $40 Trillion & The Only Path Left for the US

Welcome to The Contrarian Capitalist Market Wrap for Saturday 22nd August 2026.

Legend: 🟢 Up | 🟡 Unchanged | 🔴 Down

It is interesting to me that such a low number of people think that the US 10-year Treasury will go beyond 5.2% before 2027. Never say never.

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The US National Debt hit $40 trillion this week. An impressive milestone, especially as the last $1 trillion only took 95 days to achieve. The very first $1 trillion took 200 years.

$40 trillion is of course an enormous figure and is roughly the size of the entire U.S. economy several times over when measured against annual GDP.

At this level, the interest alone becomes a political hot potato. My understanding is that the interest stands at about $1.5 trillion per year. That is not sustainable.

But what options does the US (and most governments in general) actually have at the moment?

They have 4 options.