Two Founders, One Debate: What 250 Years of American Debt Teaches Investors About Risk
Every time a headline warns that the national debt has hit a fresh record, it’s worth remembering that the United States was born broke. In 1776, the newly declared nation had no power to tax, a currency worth little more than the paper it was printed on, and defaulted loans owed to European lenders. That founding fact — often lost in modern debt panic — is the starting point for a more useful investor question than “is this the crisis that finally breaks the system?” The better question is: how has this system historically behaved under stress, and what does that behavior actually tell us about risk today?