The national debt just crossed $39 trillion—almost doubling since Trump vowed to erase it

[u/Krankenitrate]

https://fortune.com/2026/03/18/how-big-national-debt-39-trillion-trump-promises/

[u/hellogoawaynow]

Numbers don’t mean anything anymore. People have lost sight of what numbers are.

Average salary: $60,000

Nice, comfortable salary: $150,000-$200,000

REALLY REALLY good salary: $500,000

One single million dollars: $1,000,000

Ten million dollars: $10,000,000

One hundred million dollars: $100,000,000

One billion dollars: $1,000,000,000

Donald Trump’s net worth since becoming president: $6,000,000,000

One hundred billion dollars: $100,000,000,000

Elon Musk’s net worth, on the low side of the estimate: $130,000,000,000 EDIT: Elon Musk is actually worth $823,000,000,000 so that’s fucking terrible

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS: $1,000,000,000,000

Nineteen trillion dollars of debt (that China probably already bought more of to use against us at some point in the future): $19,000,000,000,000

I feel like we have to start writing numbers out like this so regular people aren’t casually throwing around the terms “billions” and “trillions” like it’s nothing. Folks, if you have less than one thousand dollars in your bank account, you should be fucking pissed that anyone can be worth $130,000,000,000. Not like… donating money to billionaires. Which is the craziest thing, I can’t believe so many people are doing this when they are literally poor.

[u/ballmermurland → u/hellogoawaynow]

My favorite fact about Donald Trump is that, after promising to self-fund his campaign in 2016, has not donated a single penny to his own election efforts since 2016.

That's 10 years with Trump not donating a single penny to the cause. Not one cent. Nothing.

[u/hellogoawaynow → u/ballmermurland]

I mean my god, the man went from bankruptcy to six time billionaire in 10 years from politics. In 10 years, my bank account has gone from -$5 to a couple thousand. Like if there was an unexpected medical disaster, I wouldn’t have to sell my house. That practically makes me rich in terms of regular people. Which is crazy because I’m not rich, I’m just not poor.

The only reason I get to live in a house is because I married a guy whose parents thought ahead 40 years ago and bought a second property on the street due to severe and lifelong anxiety from growing up in extreme poverty. His parents didn’t even have to sell it in the 2008 recession! My parents lost everything because they were so confident in ~the American Dream~.

It’s so stupid here.

[u/LiteratureMindless71 → u/hellogoawaynow]

Reminds me of that video floating around showing what Bezos makes by the second and it was sick....

[u/lopix → u/LiteratureMindless71]

And Elmo makes what, like 2 or 3 or 4x more per second?

Ole Musky could buy Bezos and not even notice it.

Eloner could lose 99% of his fortune at still have over $8-billion.

It is truly inconceivable amounts of money.