This is a headgum podcast. I don't know what to think I don't know what to say

and that's all right that's okay

I don't know anything.

Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover.

Thank you so much for joining me again.

You know, the Dunkin Donuts ads have been lying to you because America does not actually run on their cut-rate coffee.

America actually runs on debt. People in our society often need more money than they have liquidly available.

All right?

That's a common state of affairs.

If you want a house or a car or say a major life-saving surgery

in America, there's a pretty good chance

you won't have the cash in the bank to do it and you will need a loan from someone.

In fact, everybody needs loans just as a part of daily life.

Individuals need them, companies need them, even the government itself needs loans on many occasions.

And that is why we as Americans hold nearly 18 trillion dollars in debt.

With this ocean of owed money sloshing around,

it's no wonder that people can't always pay up.

And so we have a system in place,

a release valve called bankruptcy, which lets people disperse

their debts when they can't pay them and start fresh. Bankruptcies are simply

a necessary part of our economy. It would grind to a halt without them. There were about

450,000 bankruptcies in America last year alone. But in our unequal

...