This is the first post in a two-part series about the national debt. Most people consider the national debt in the same way they would the debt of a household, in which high levels of debt and deficit spending are not sustainable and must be paid back or renegotiated at some point. But are these two items similar? At the national level, U.S. federal debt reached $20.5 trillion (or 105% of gross domestic product) by the second quarter of 2020. What does increasing debt mean to the U.S., whose income has only grown by 30% in the past 12 years, while the debt has ballooned by 400% in the same period? Senior Vice ... (full story)