by Daniel Brouse
July 17, 2025
I’ve been getting a lot of great questions about two nonlinear, dynamic systems: climate collapse and economic collapse. Just as the climate system consists of interconnected subsystems, so too does the world economy. This chapter examines how current U.S. fiscal policy is a critical driver within this chaotic system, accelerating the collapse of the American and, by extension, the global economy.
The Three Subsystems Driving Collapse
The current fiscal policy can be viewed as three interacting subsystems, each contributing to an exponential acceleration of collapse:
1️⃣ Anti-Immigration and Mass Deportation
Capitalism depends on population growth. The U.S. has an aging population and declining birth rates, making mass immigration essential for economic stability. Without it, the economy faces a death spiral: fewer workers, reduced consumer demand, lower tax revenues, and collapsing support for programs like Medicare and Social Security.
For the past five years, immigration has accounted for 80% of U.S. GDP growth. Ending immigration and pursuing mass deportation will likely be the first domino to fall, triggering lower demand, labor shortages, and the unraveling of America’s fragile social safety net. It will also accelerate the adoption of AI and robotics, ensuring these jobs never return.
2️⃣ Tariffs: The Hidden Consumption Tax
Tariffs are regressive consumption taxes that fall hardest on the poor and middle class. Consumer spending drives the U.S. economy, and rising prices from tariffs reduce purchasing power, creating a feedback loop of lower demand, declining business revenues, layoffs, and economic contraction.
Tariffs marketed as “protecting American jobs” are, in practice, a stealth tax on every consumer, funding unrelated policy goals while weakening the core engine of economic growth.
3️⃣ The Big Ugly Bill: A Bomb Under the Economy
Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill (Act)” is not a strategy for energy independence or economic growth; it is a reckless gamble trading long-term planetary and economic stability for a mirage of short-term gains.
Key impacts of the bill include:
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Gutting science and promoting climate collapse, starting with the destabilization of the insurance industry as climate disasters become uninsurable.
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Slashing Medicaid, pushing the cost of health care back onto the private sector and individuals, straining household finances, and increasing medical bankruptcies.
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Spending billions on anti-immigration enforcement and mass deportations, resulting in a net economic loss while worsening demographic decline.
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Creating unsustainable debt: The bill will add trillions to the deficit, creating a positive feedback loop:
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Massive government borrowing drives up interest rates.
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Rising rates increase the cost of borrowing.
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Higher interest payments balloon the deficit further.
- In addition, the Big Ugly Act quietly raised the debt ceiling by trillions, removing near-term borrowing constraints. Almost immediately after the bill’s passage, the U.S. Treasury announced it would issue $1 trillion in new debt to replenish its cash reserves and finance the growing deficit. This surge of Treasury issuance will flood the market with short-term bills and long-term bonds, further driving up interest rates as the government competes for scarce capital. Higher rates, in turn, increase the cost of servicing the debt, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of borrowing and rising interest expenses that threaten the long-term sustainability of the U.S. economy.
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Is it really trillions of dollars billions?
The debt ceiling was increased by $5 trillion, raising the limit from around $36 trillion to approximately $41 trillion under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” reconciliation package.
Following the legislation’s passage, the Treasury immediately began issuing new debt. Recent projections estimate between $900 billion and $1.6 trillion in short-term T‑bill issuances over the next 18 months—as part of a total issuance effort likely exceeding $1 trillion.
So yes, it’s literally trillions—a $5 trillion increase in borrowing authority, with over $1 trillion already entering the market to fund current operations and replenish Treasury balances.
Already in 2025, the U.S. is spending $1 trillion annually on interest payments, surpassing the entire military budget and many key domestic spending programs. This rising interest burden crowds out critical investments, hollowing out the nation’s capacity to address infrastructure, education, and climate resilience.
A Cascade of Self-Destruction: How Protectionism, Corruption, and Extremism Are Undermining America
This disastrous fiscal policy, rooted in protectionism and white nationalism, is compounded by a cascade of other self-destructive actions. Among these are the covert funding of a proxy war in Gaza by the notorious GHF—a private militia corporation established under Trump in Delaware—which uses U.S. citizens in combat roles actively participating in acts of genocide. It also includes the systematic undermining of the Federal Reserve’s independence, attacks on the rule of law and the justice system, rampant conflicts of interest, nepotism, and entrenched corruption. Pathological lying, racism, and bigotry further erode America’s credibility, while the administration’s pattern of acting as an unreliable trading partner and military ally weakens longstanding alliances and global stability.
A System Destabilizing Itself
The combined effect of anti-immigration policies, regressive tariffs, and unsustainable debt expansion is creating a self-reinforcing system of instability. Each subsystem interacts with the others, amplifying the risk of a systemic collapse of the U.S. economy, which as a major subsystem of the global economy, could trigger a worldwide crisis.
As with the climate system, feedback loops in the economic system accelerate collapse once tipping points are crossed. Without fundamental policy changes, these current fiscal choices may mark the end of U.S. exceptionalism and push the world into a prolonged period of instability and decline.
The Big Beautiful Bill Shell Game: Funding Deportation While Killing Growth