The National Debt Conspiracy

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.3 • 10.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Oof -- debt. People have it, companies have it, and a lot of countries do, too. In the US, the national debt becomes a hot-button issue every time elections roll around. But how does debt work when the country that owes the debt literally makes the rules around finance? In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the dizzying (and sometimes terrifying) story of national debt.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events.
0:06.5	You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
0:12.0	A production of IHeartRadie. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
0:28.4	My name is Noel.
0:29.5	They call me Ben.
0:30.7	We're joined as always with our super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagin.
0:35.2	Most importantly, you are you.
0:37.6	You are here.
0:38.8	That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
0:42.5	And friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists,
0:45.9	we're not too highfaluting to admit it.
0:49.6	Tonight we are in debt.
0:51.4	Right?
0:51.7	Like we all owe someone a little bit of money. A debt of gratitude at the very
0:56.8	least to you, conspiracy realists, whom we love and owe our lives to. Yes. And to our government,
1:05.2	to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars. Have you guys heard this talk of people saying,
1:10.4	you know what, maybe I'm just not going to pay taxes this year. It's not going to do it. I hear that every year from all imaginable demographics, actually. I saw it as a headline and it just kind of seemed like a little bit of like a, like, really? That's okay. Who's saying this? And this is not just like like how it you know typically is it's also like and
1:29.0	but also before you do that please consider that it's illegal or also social security or that
1:35.9	you are not a billionaire nor a financial stakeholder uh in the grand scheme of things now as we know
1:42.9	some of us in the crowd tonight are technically billionaires.
1:48.3	So thanks for tuning in.
1:49.7	Some of us are broken.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 15 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.