Ep. 2501 - The Looming Economic Disaster, Explained

September 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The U.S. national debt is projected to reach 120% of GDP by 2035, interest on the 10-year Treasury hit 4.8% in early 2025, and 90% of Americans now believe the government is corrupt. These are not separate crises. On The Ben Shapiro Show, host Ben Shapiro argues they are symptoms of a single underlying reality: both major parties have embraced a populist consensus that refuses to make trade-offs between spending, innovation, and national security. The result, he warns, is an empire choosing to bankrupt itself through welfareism while simultaneously throttling the only technology—AI—that could grow the economy fast enough to escape the trap.

The Bond Market Signal No One Wants to Read

Shapiro begins with a technical but ominous development: rising bond yields. When bond prices fall and yields rise, it signals that investors are losing confidence in the government's ability to repay its debts in non-inflated currency. Mortgage rates have followed, hitting 6.71%—their highest in over a year. The root cause, he argues, is a bipartisan refusal to restrain spending. Federal debt has exploded from roughly 35% of GDP in the early 2000s to nearly 100% today, driven not by defense but by an ever-expanding welfare state. Both parties now compete to promise they will never touch entitlement programs. Shapiro quotes Donald Trump's 2016 pledge not to cut Social Security, Medicare, or

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What you'll learn

1 (03:03) **The Uniparty Thesis** - Shapiro introduces his central argument: a bipartisan "uniparty" is bankrupting the country through endless spending, and four seemingly unrelated stories all prove it.
2 (03:54) **Story 1: Bond Markets in Disarray** - Bond yields are rising because global investors believe the U.S. will never stop spending, making borrowing more expensive for everyone.
3 (11:06) **Story 2: 90% of America Believes Government is Corrupt** - Gallup polling shows 89% of Americans view the government as corrupt, a radical increase from 2006, and they are not wrong.
4 (12:44) **Story 3: Bernie Sanders Wants to Destroy AI** - The only hope for outgrowing the national debt is an AI-driven productivity boom, but Sanders and the anti-tech backlash threaten to kill it.
5 (21:52) **The Uniparty’s Anti-Capitalist Consensus** - Both parties now blame capitalism for problems actually caused by government intervention, rejecting the creative destruction that drives growth.
6 (27:54) **Story 4: Foreign Enemies Sense Weakness** - Russia and China are testing NATO and Japan because they believe the U.S. is vulnerable due to its fiscal and political weakness.
7 (30:53) **Empires Die by Welfareism** - The U.S. is repeating the British Empire’s mistake of trading global power for an unaffordable welfare state at home.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Ben Shapiro

Show Notes

The uniparty is hell-bent on bankrupting the country in the name of "populism;" we examine the reasons why and lay out the path toward solvency; Vice President Vance defends his friend, Tucker Carlson; and Venice Film Festival cheers for Palestine.

Ep. 2501

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