How to Ruin Trust and Rack Up Debt in Seven Simple Moves

Ever lent money to a friend? Or been on the other side — asking for help, making promises, meaning every word? Then you already know that trust is complicated. What follows is a simple guide to destroying it systematically, in seven well-documented steps. Governments and institutions have been refining this playbook for decades. It would be a shame not to learn from them.

This piece is satirical. The data is not.

Step 1: Build a Foundation of Trust

Start strong. Establish yourself as responsible, reliable, creditworthy. Secure the loan. Shake hands. Make promises you fully intend to honour — at least initially.

Consider those previous generations who lived within their means, saved money, and regarded keeping income and expenditure in balance as simply prudent. They did this in apparent ignorance of what Top Economists™ would later clarify: saving is, in aggregate, deflationary. Every penny unspent is a penny not stimulating the economy. Frugality is socially suboptimal. Keynes said so, and he had very good hair.

You are laying the groundwork. Trust is the collateral for everything that follows.

Step 2: Use the Funds Responsibly — Or Look Like You Are

Now that you have their confidence, make a few sensible moves. Pay down some existing obligations. Fund something that looks productive. Give your lenders the satisfying impression that they were right about you. This is the calm before the storm.

In the background, critics will mutter about “debt ceilings” and “living within means.” These are quaint concerns from people who have not read the literature. The scientific consensus among Top Economists™ is clear: growth requires leverage. Caution is a failure of ambition.

Step 3: Bask in the Success — Loudly

Something goes well. A project delivers. The economy grows. This is the moment to pause, take full credit, and develop a taste for the feeling. You will want to remember it.

Sensible advisers will suggest reinvesting profits and building reserves. But reinvestment is just deferred consumption, and deferring consumption is, as established, anti-social. Capital must be deployed. The world runs on spending. Nobody built anything lasting by saving.

Step 4: Get Reckless

You have a track record now. Use it. Borrow more. Invest in things that look impressive rather than things that return value. If you are in government: a new department, a vanity infrastructure project, a subsidy programme that will be someone else’s problem to unwind.

Critics will warn about bubbles and unsustainable trajectories. They lack the bigger picture. As Top Economists™ understand, the economy runs on confidence, and debt, properly framed, is simply confidence made liquid.

Step 5: Denial at Scale

When the inner voice asks whether this has gone too far, relabel the situation. You are not over-leveraged; you are “enhancing growth.” You are not consuming future earnings; you are “investing in potential.”

Here is a number worth sitting with: in the 1950s, one dollar of debt in the United States produced approximately one dollar of economic output. By 2024, the same economy requires over four dollars of debt to generate a single dollar of GDP growth. This is, strictly speaking, a deteriorating return on borrowed money at civilisational scale.

But ratios are reductive. Debt multipliers, hedged capital outflows, exogenous demand shocks — economics is complex. You cannot reduce this to a simple number.

At this stage, shift from investive borrowing — where the debt at least theoretically funds something productive — to consumptive borrowing, where the debt funds current expenditure and the interest on previous debt. This transition tends to happen gradually, then very quickly.

Step 6: Betrayal Mode

Creditors are asking questions. Voters are sceptical. The original promises are beginning to look like what they were: optimistic projections from a different environment.

When the funds are no longer where they were supposed to be, the move is to manage the fallout rather than address the cause. There are new lenders to reassure. The old ones can take a number.

You will notice, with some wistfulness, that the reputation assembled in Step 1 is now gone. The time required to rebuild it — measured in years of demonstrated restraint — is unappealing compared to the speed at which it was spent.

Step 7: The Optional Rebuilding Phase

Reputation destroyed? Excellent. You have reached the final step.

Rebuilding is, in principle, possible. It requires years of humility, fiscal discipline, and the kind of incremental credibility-building that is genuinely boring to execute and observe. It resembles, uncomfortably, what your grandparents did — living within their means, saving some portion of income, treating debt as a last resort rather than a first instrument.

Should anyone accuse you of irresponsibility during Steps 1 through 6, condemn them. Accuse them of not understanding modern economics. Suggest that their attachment to “common sense” reflects an inability to grasp the nuance required for sophisticated macroeconomic management. This works surprisingly well, for a surprisingly long time.

The playbook described above is not hypothetical. It is the documented trajectory of every sovereign default, every institutional collapse, and every personal bankruptcy that followed the same sequence of steps. The details vary. The structure does not.

Bitcoin’s fixed supply and resistance to discretionary issuance can be understood, in part, as a technical response to this playbook — an asset whose rules cannot be changed by Step 5 reasoning, and whose supply cannot be increased to fund Step 4 ambitions. Whether that property makes it a meaningful constraint on the playbook at scale remains to be seen. The playbook, for its part, continues.

This article is for informational and satirical purposes only and does not constitute financial or legal advice. The data cited is accurate to the best of the author’s knowledge. Consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions.