Welcome to the Eric Erickson Show podcast, Our Three.

Hello, America. It is Eric Erickson here across the nation. The phone number is 877-97-9773-7-44-25 should you wish to be on the program.

Now, I want to talk about conversations I have had.

I can't go into a ton of detail, but I will just note this.

I got to spend some time with some

very knowledgeable people over the weekend talking about the state of our economy

and had private conversations had had some public conversations.

And I will just tell you I have had this, well, let me just say I've had this fear that doom is upon us,

that the economic free fall we are about to go through is going to be extremely

painful. And there have been some articles out there saying, oh, we could be heading for

a depression instead of a recession or even a great recession. And I'm a little, I'm in a better

headspace, haven't talked to people who would know. So in these conversations, what came up over and over again is that as bad as it is in the United States,

it's actually worse in other countries.

Our national debt is 125% of the 125% of GDP.

That means our debt, the amount of money we owe exceeds the amount of money our economy produces, 125%.

That's a staggering number.

And other countries are just as bad.

Other countries are even worse.

In fact, China came up repeatedly, and these were well- well noted financial people who have been deeply

involved in shaping American fiscal policy over time.

And what I found encouraging is a growing belief, not just from them but from others that

I've talked to that China is actually not on the rise.

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