9/11: Twenty-Five Years Later…

Was it real?

Did I really see that?

I feel confident I know what I saw.

But even now, 25 years later, I still question myself about the details.

A perfect blue-sky morning. Crisp September air.

The eleventh day of the month, 25 years ago today.

My water heater broke that morning, flooding my basement in Boonton, New Jersey. I missed my train. The next train was 10 minutes late. I should have been inside the base of the World Trade Center when the planes hit.

Instead, I emerged from the PATH subway station in Greenwich Village and my immediate vision was the top of the first tower, sliding off at a 45-degree angle, right to left.

The world suddenly surreal.

I was with my boss, Neal. We shared a train into the city most mornings. We moved over to West Side Highway and fought against the sea of humanity fleeing Lower Manhattan as we made our way into the storm. Our office was just across from the towers, in the World Financial Center.

And then I stopped walking.

I guess my face gave it away.

That sea of humanity stopped too, and turned around to see what I was watching…

The second tower coming down, straight, upon itself…

In that moment… America changed.

On wars alone, America has spent more than $8 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001.

On Sept. 10, 2001, America’s total debt was just $5.7 trillion… today it has crossed $40 trillion.

There’s a term in football: “outkicking your coverage.” It means that your punter kicks the ball so far downfield that the rest of the team cannot run fast enough to keep up. The danger is that the opposing player catches the ball and has a lot of empty space to work with, creating a dangerous disadvantage for the kicking team.

America’s disadvantage at this point is a debt load that now requires about $1.25 trillion in annual interest costs, equal to 22% of our total pre-9/11 debt. That’s money that does absolutely nothing for the economy, yet it’s the second-largest line item in DC’s annual budget.

Now even top politicians and bureaucrats in government are telling anyone who will listen that the only way to solve America’s problems is to effectively reset the financial system… otherwise the economy collapses under the weight of far too much debt.

At one point, that would’ve been seen as truly a black swan event—a crisis no one would have predicted.

And then it was a gray swan, as people like me began pointing to the possibility that America was stumbling toward a crisis of some kind.

And now… it’s just a swan. Everyone who’s paying attention sees it. The bird-watchers in government are pointing to the swan and saying, “We have to do something before this swan makes a mess of the joint.”

Meaning that at this point, the only way to deal with America’s debt and the associated problems that have piled high over the past 25 years… is a reset of the dollar and the US monetary system.

It’s a matter of when, not if.

And for me and you, that raises just one question… Are you prepared for what comes next?