Somebody Else's Money

Patrick opens with his daughter Meghan; a returning guest from a decade ago, now a rising college junior with her first restaurant job, for what he calls the "Gen Z corner." The subject is debt. Meghan defines it as money borrowed and repaid with interest, and Patrick scales the roughly $19 trillion U.S. household debt figure with analogies: a million seconds is 11½ days, a trillion is 31,000 years; stacked $100 bills would circle the Earth. He walks through banking mechanics; savers earn a fraction of a percent while banks lend out roughly 90% of deposits at 6% or more, a spread that's not five points but a massive multiple on capital. The knock-on effect is inflation: because mortgages, auto loans, and student loans exist, more people can bid on houses, cars, and tuition, pushing demand and prices up.