Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Every once in a while, someone explains what you’ve been feeling… but couldn’t quite put into words.
This is one of those times.
In a recent sit-down with Peter McCormack, macro analyst Lyn Alden didn’t sugarcoat it. She didn’t hedge it, she didn’t dress it up in economist jargon, she just said it.
“Do you believe we’re living through a slow financial collapse that the majority of people don’t even recognize is happening?
Her answer, “I do.”
Sip on that for a moment. Because if you’ve been wondering why everything feels tighter (even when you’re making money) you’re not crazy. You’re just living inside the system she’s describing.
Table of contents
The Slow Bleed Nobody Sees
Alden breaks it down in a way that hits a little too close to home. Your paycheck? Losing value. Your savings? Losing value. Your buying power? Definitely losing value.
Not overnight. Not in some dramatic “bank collapse” headline. But slowly. Quietly. Relentlessly.
“People kind of look around and say… I’m still earning money, but it just doesn’t feel like it goes as far… and a lot of times they’re right.”
And here’s the kicker. It’s not a bug. It’s the system. According to Alden, modern currency systems are designed to grow… or die. And that “growth”?
It comes from debt, money creation, and whether people realize it or not, debasement.
The Game Is Rigged (And You’re Probably Not Playing It)
This is where things go from uncomfortable to outright brutal. Alden explains that the real winners in this system aren’t the savers. They’re the borrowers. The ones who can take on debt, buy assets, and effectively “short the currency.”
Everyone else? They’re holding the bag.
“Governments are shorting it, corporations are shorting it… and the least able to short it are… those at the bottom of the income stack.”
Translation?
If you’re just working, saving, and trying to do the “right thing”… you’re getting squeezed from both sides. And most people don’t even know it’s happening.
“By the End, It Resembles Theft”
This is the line that should make people sit up. Because Alden doesn’t dance around it.
“You kind of keep adding new layers to the system… until by the end it resembles theft.”
Not theft in the traditional sense. No one’s kicking your door in and grabbing your wallet. It’s quieter than that. It’s your dollar buying less. Your savings shrinking in real terms. Your future is getting more expensive.
All while the system keeps humming along like nothing’s wrong.
By the Numbers: The Quiet Collapse in Plain Sight
- $39 TRILLION+
Current U.S. national debt discussed; levels that historically don’t end cleanly - ~7% / YEAR
Average money supply growth in developed countries
(Your dollars are being diluted at this pace) - 2–4% / YEAR
Typical wage growth for most people
(You’re losing ground every year) - 0%
Long-term supply growth of Bitcoin (by design)
(Alden highlights scarcity as the key differentiator) - ~2% / YEAR
Gold supply growth
(Historically why it holds value better than fiat) - NEAR 0% INTEREST (historically)
Central banks forced rates to zero to keep debt alive
(System has to grow—or it breaks) - 2008 → NOW
Private debt crisis → shifted to public debt
(Losses socialized, system reset… temporarily)
So What Happens Next?
Here’s the part nobody wants to hear. There’s no clean exit.
“Once you get to the part where there’s this much debt… there’s really no way out of it other than they’re going to default.”
But don’t picture some dramatic “we can’t pay” moment. Modern default doesn’t look like that. It looks like printing your way out of the problem and letting inflation do the damage.
Slow… or fast… depending on how bad things get.
Why This Matters to the 2A Crowd
This is where it all comes back home. Because history has a pattern:
- Economic instability → political instability
- Political instability → social tension
- Social tension → bad decisions (and worse laws)
When systems start cracking, governments don’t suddenly get smaller. They get more aggressive. More control, more restrictions, more “for your safety” policies.
And that includes your rights. The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. It’s about uncertainty. It’s about recognizing that systems (financial, political, social) aren’t permanent.
And when they wobble? You don’t want to be the guy who assumed everything would just keep working.
The Bottom Line
This isn’t doom porn. It’s reality with the volume turned up. We’re not in a freefall collapse… yet. But if Alden’s right, and the data suggests she might be, we’re in something slower. Something more subtle.
A long grind where the rules quietly change… and most people don’t notice until it’s too late.
So the real question isn’t whether the system is shifting. It’s whether you’re paying attention while it does.
How Do You Protect Yourself From This?
If the system is slowly eating away at your money, doing nothing isn’t a strategy. You don’t need to go extreme, but you do need to be intentional.
Start by getting out of pure cash. If your savings are just sitting there, they’re losing value every year. Think in terms of hard assets (real estate, commodities, long-term equities) that hold or grow value over time, not just dollars in an account.
Understand how debt actually works in this system. Used wisely, fixed-rate debt can work in your favor as inflation rises. But there’s a big difference between leveraging assets (buying something that pays you) and drowning in liabilities (buying something that drains you).
SEE ALSO: Bitcoin, Gold, or Guns: What’s the Smart Play?
It also makes sense to have at least some exposure outside the traditional system, whether that’s hard assets, commodities, or alternative stores of value (Gold, BTC, Guns!). The goal isn’t speculation. It’s diversification.
At the same time, don’t overlook the basics. Skills, adaptability, and self-reliance don’t inflate away. In uncertain times, those matter more than most people realize.
And yes, personal security matters. Economic pressure has a way of spilling into the real world. The Second Amendment isn’t about theory, it’s about being prepared if things don’t go according to plan.
Above all, stay aware. Most people don’t get wiped out overnight. They get worn down slowly because they didn’t see the shift happening.
You don’t have to predict the future. But you do have to recognize the game you’re playing.
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is a seasoned outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, and the kind of guy who’d rather track whitetails than scroll social media. As an editor for GunsAmerica, he’s got a sharp eye for spotting both solid gear and bad gun laws. Whether he’s deep in the woods or deep in editorial deadlines, Larry brings a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to firearms, hunting, and the great American tradition of self-reliance. If there’s a hot debate on gun rights or the latest in hunting tech, you can bet Larry’s got an opinion—and it’s probably backed up with both facts and field experience.
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This is as predictable as the sunrise. US voters INSIST on repeating the insanity of electing one of the 2 parties, as if it’s a religious obligation. BOTH parties are full participants in the devaluation of the currency, saddling the tax-paying citizens with debt, and empowering the governing class. Despite the giant flashing sign displaying irrefutable proof of this fact, every election time, millions of voters walk right past this giant billboard, ignoring it’s warning, and cast their vote for their tribe. Then, the spend the next 4 years complaining about the outcome they chose, before doing it all over again. The justification is so childish as to be laughable: “But, if I don’t vote for “X” then “Y” will get elected, and they’re even WORSE than the idiot I voted for!” There’s a party that wants you to quit participating in this comic opera, but they are “Extremists.” They’re called Libertarians, and they’ve been lighting up the flashing warning sign for everyone for a century… and no one listens… So, voters get exactly what they want… good and hard…
all i know is that there are way too many excuses to raise prices but no reason to lower them so what your paying now will be the baseline until the next (ahem) disaster happens!
The problem with government debt is that it’s really built upon two causes. Incoming revenue and government spending. Incoming revenue is taxes. So every time we give a tax cut to taxpayers and corporations, it means less revenue coming in to the government coffers.
And spending never seems to be cut when taxes are cut. Its like a company cutting your pay but not cutting your spending. So you borrow to afford everything. And eventually you have a lot of debt. But 70% of the spending is mandatory. Meaning the government guarantees that that 70% will be spent.
Which only means 30% can be cut. And unfortunately, even if we cut that 30%, it will barely touch the national debt. So the fastest way to eliminate the debt is to raise taxes.
In economics, there is a “general measure of the responsiveness of an economic variable in response to a change in another economic variable” which is known as elasticity. Finding that optimal point is the trick. If deficit spending is invested on sound projects than the benefit should outweigh costs in both the private and government sector and long term economic benefits should be enjoyed. The article pointed out how “shorting” the system is paying off but in the wrong way. The model you describe seems very simplistic to me where you say, “the fastest way to eliminate the debt is to raise taxes.”
I noticed you never mentioned cutting spending. I was driving to a gun class to renew my CCL yesterday. On the short trip I saw two large day care centers that have been in place for years. Never once have I seen a child or parent or even worker near the buildings, the taxpayers seem to be getting fleeced. The revenue in flow is not the problem; it is the revenue outflow of fraud that is the problem.
I mentioned it. Its the 30%. But cutting it wont make much of a difference. Currently our deficit is $1.9 trillion per year. Thats the amount of our budget that we have to borrow. Our national budget each year is $7.1 trillion. So 30% is $2.13 trillion with $1.9 trillion going to the deficit and $300 billion going to pay down the debt. So for $39 trillion, it would take 130 years to pay off, but that’s without paying interest on the loan. And that 30% we would cut does pay for programs a lot of people rely on. Its just not “promised” by the government.
We face 2 huge problems:
1) Massive increase of federal debt creating high inflation. Balance the budget and pay the debt back to fix this.
2) Inflation calculations are false. That is actually worse yet ignored. Core inflation ignores energy, food, housing… and quality. Things aren’t just going through shrinkflation, the quality is dropping to make them unusable. All ignored in the official measurements.
1% REAL inflation is a good thing because it gets people to invest their money instead of just sit on it. More than that is harmful.
MMT might be more destructive on society than alcohol and marijuana combined. What is the statistic – 4 out of 5 dollars in circulation today was created since 2020? Of course things are getting more expensive. Politicians of both stripes have made the money supply too much of a political tool. It began in Bretton Woods but the system worked if the US Dollar was backed by gold. Nixon cracked the dam when he took us off the gold standard – so much of what he did was well-intentioned at the time but those good intentions paved a road to perdition. Barack Obama, man, it gets hard to defend him sometimes and the way he played around with MMT, it almost makes me want to call him Barry Sotero. Or Al-Buraq. As much as Obama broke the money supply, neither Trump nor Biden (or his autopen) have tried to fix it. Trump probably did as much or more damage in 2020 with the money printing. And then they appoint Janet Yellen as Secretary of the Treasury…
If you want some insight into the cavalier disregard the MMT advocates have for the guardianship of the money supply, look up the Trillion Dollar Coin.
Who could have guessed William Jennings Bryant was actually right about something?
Don’t forget that monster from Jekyll Island where Congress abdicated the constitutional responsibility of setting monetary policy. As a result, the elites finally established a central bank, gained uncontested control of the economy and called it the “Federal Reserve.” Too bad it is not federal and there are no reserves but the IRS sure is real, even without any Constitutional basis. As the “Founding Fathers” knew, the Central Bank will build a standing Army, and two World Wars soon followed the sojourn to Georgia in 1910 which was on double secret probation until 1930, but most don’t even know that the switcheroo ever happened.
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild???