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GOODALEXANDER
A living balance sheet for the United States

Doom Thesis

The promises are long dated. The refinancing is not.

Gross federal debt, Social Security and Medicare shortfalls—measured against the households and companies expected to carry them.

Index refreshed
00 / Doom Index

A falsifiable thesis, not a mood.

The Doom Thesis is a chain of contentions intended to inform long/short equity, macro, and cryptocurrency investing. The index measures how strongly the current evidence supports that regime.

Research evidence score 68/100 As of 2026-08-05 · not a calibrated probability
Data available 100.0% All current index inputs are populated

Simply put

Structural malinvestment and political transfers have created a fiscal burden that requires decisive adjustment unless AI produces extraordinary economy-wide productivity. The thesis remains intact while that productivity escape is unlikely, capital and attention continue to accrue to distraction rather than broad business productivity, and a politically plausible fiscal settlement remains absent.

The live number is an evidence score built from fixed thresholds, not a probability. Higher readings mean the measured fiscal, productivity, political, institutional, and market evidence is more consistent with the thesis.

0–19Thesis invalidated
20–39Doom is a tail case
40–59Contested regime
60–79Doom is base case
80–100High-conviction regime
Index components

What drives the score

The six sections below explain what the index measures, the latest reading, how much it contributes to the score, and where the number comes from.

01 Fiscal constraintThe United States has a structural fiscal gap that cannot be closed painlessly under consensus growth. 20% weight
63 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

Debt, interest, and promised-program funding are growing faster than the ordinary tax base. Stabilization requires unusually strong growth, materially higher revenue, benefit reform, inflation, or some combination.

How it affects the score

Score from debt and deficit trajectories, interest burden, program-gap annual equivalent, and the size of the recurring adjustment required to reach the prudent scenario. The unified-deficit input scores 0 at 3% of GDP or less and 100 at 8% or more, so persistent deficits near 6% register as material stress rather than safety.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
Gross federal debt / GDP Scored · 5.00% index weight · Bloomberg PUBLDEBT and BEA/FRED GDP · as of 2026-08-03Latest daily gross debt divided by latest quarterly nominal GDP at an annual rate.
122.4% 69/100 current
Trailing-12-month deficit / GDP Scored · 4.00% index weight · Treasury MTS/FRED monthly receipts and outlays; 0 at <=3% and 100 at >=8% · as of 2026-06-30Trailing 12-month Treasury receipts less outlays divided by latest quarterly nominal GDP.
5.6% 51/100 current
Federal interest / receipts Scored · 4.00% index weight · Treasury security-level current-curve model and trailing-12-month Treasury MTS receipts · as of 2026-08-05FY2026 current-curve net-interest model divided by trailing 12-month Treasury receipts.
19.4% 58/100 current
Social Security and Medicare 75-year gap / GDP Scored · 4.00% index weight · SSA/CMS Trustees and Treasury Statement of Social Insurance · as of 2026-01-01
291.3% 64/100 current
Recurring prudent-course adjustment / GDP Scored · 3.00% index weight · Doom fiscal sustainability model · as of 2026-08-05
7.9% 77/100 current

Component score: 63.4/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Claim audit
The current debt, interest, Social Security, and Medicare arithmetic is measured and sourced.

The existing daily panel, Trustees estimates, CBO baseline, and security-level Treasury roll model support this.

warranted
The prudent scenario requires a very large recurring adjustment under current assumptions.

The page shows the deficit correction and program-gap funding separately to avoid double counting.

warranted
Demographics make a wartime-sized debt ratio harder to stabilize than in 1945.

The OASDI beneficiary-to-worker series and gross debt/GDP comparison are already present.

warranted
There is no obvious path to balancing the budget.

The arithmetic is supported; the word “path” requires political and behavioral evidence developed in the political-feasibility component.

partial
02 Productivity escapeRapid productivity acceleration is not yet the base case, and the fiscal escape velocity is far above consensus. 30% weight
82 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

Ordinary productivity growth is too slow to make the debt and unfunded obligations manageable on its own. The thesis breaks only if AI produces a sustained, economy-wide jump large enough for growth to outrun those obligations.

How it affects the score

Combine realized nonfarm-business productivity, forecast distributions, output-per-dollar measures, and the probability of five-year productivity at or above 5%. Lower growth produces a higher Doom score.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
Five-year labor-productivity growth Scored · 6.00% index weight · BLS/FRED OPHNFB, latest quarter aligned · as of Q1 2026
1.4% 90/100 current
Latest quarterly labor-productivity growth Scored · 3.00% index weight · BLS nonfarm business productivity · as of Q1 2026
0.3% 94/100 current
Real utility capex per MWh versus 2004 Scored · 6.00% index weight · Sharadar rolling-four-quarter filings, EIA trailing-12-month generation, CPI-U · as of TTM through May 2026Latest point uses rolling-four-quarter Sharadar capex and trailing-12-month EIA generation.
2.5× 73/100 current
Real school spending growth minus NAEP outcome growth Scored · 4.50% index weight · Census, NCES NAEP, CPI-U · as of 2024
30.5 pp 76/100 current
FCF margin outside the distraction index Scored · 3.00% index weight · Sharadar quarterly filings and the disclosed distraction-index membership · as of 2026-08-05Point-in-time ARQ replay; excludes known score-70+ distraction businesses, Financial Services, and Utilities.
8.0% 70/100 current
Real revenue growth outside the distraction index Scored · 3.00% index weight · Sharadar quarterly filings, the disclosed distraction-index membership, and FRED GDP deflator · as of 2026-08-05GDP-deflator-adjusted aggregate revenue growth; current-vintage GDPDEF, mix, M&A, entry, and cyclicality prevent a standalone causal productivity interpretation.
2.3% YoY 72/100 current
Research probability of five-year productivity at or above 5% Scored · 4.50% index weight · Philadelphia Fed SPF PROD10, CBO, BLS/FRED OPHNFB, disclosed AI scenarios · as of 2026-03-31Research ensemble, not a calibrated probability; its AI tail depends on disclosed scenario priors.
2.5% 95/100 current

Component score: 82.0/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Claim audit
Observed productivity has not yet established a sustained 5% regime.

The existing BLS quarterly and five-year trend series supports the historical statement, not the forward probability.

warranted
Broad operating companies outside known distraction businesses are showing measurable real revenue growth and cash conversion.

A daily point-in-time Sharadar bridge now tracks rolling-four-quarter GDP-deflator-adjusted revenue growth, operating-cash-flow margin, and FCF margin for U.S. nonfinancial, nonutility companies outside the score-70+ distraction basket. Current-vintage GDPDEF, mix, acquisitions, entry, and cyclicality prevent a causal AI-productivity interpretation.

partial
Several high-spending systems are producing weak measured output gains.

Utilities and education are documented descriptively, but the charts do not establish causation.

partial
AI's offsetting effects will prevent massive net productivity acceleration.

This is central to the thesis but currently has no decomposed empirical model.

missing
Five-percent sustained productivity growth would invalidate the Doom base case.

The threshold and research estimator are explicit and reproducible; live execution remains gated on calibration and governance.

warranted
03 The distraction economyAI may raise measured capability while reducing human attention, agency, and effective productivity through personalized media and addiction loops. 15% weight
56 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

Cheaper, more personalized content can consume the time and focus that better tools theoretically save. A productivity model that counts only workplace automation misses this offset.

How it affects the score

Measure attention-platform value and cash flow against industrial capacity, observed digital leisure versus socializing, and two explicit weekly Google Trends inputs. The AI Porn/constructive-education 52-week level ratio and their trailing-12-week YoY growth-rate difference each receive 10% of the Distraction component, or 1.5% of the total Doom Index.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
Distraction-index market cap / Industrials Scored · 5.25% index weight · Sharadar market caps and the disclosed distraction-index membership · as of 2026-08-04The 2026 classification is applied retrospectively; this is not a point-in-time membership backtest.
129.0% 69/100 current
Distraction-index four-quarter FCF / Industrials Scored · 3.75% index weight · Sharadar quarterly filings and the disclosed distraction-index membership · as of 2026-08-05
123.3% 66/100 current
Measured digital leisure / socializing time Scored · 3.00% index weight · BLS American Time Use Survey Table 11A and LABSTAT · as of 2025-12-31BLS primary-activity proxy; concurrent phone/media use is omitted and the transform is descriptive, not a causal productivity estimate.
5.6× 51/100 current
AI Porn / constructive education 52-week search index Scored · 1.50% index weight · DataForSEO Google Trends worldwide grouped query; AI Porn versus equal-weight Best Colleges and Trade School · as of 2026-08-01Scored level signal; constructive attention is the equal-weight Best Colleges and Trade School index.
1.8× 42/100 current
AI-porn search growth versus education Scored · 1.50% index weight · Google Trends worldwide; trailing-12-week growth versus the same period a year ago · as of 2026-08-01AI-porn search interest grew about 45 points more slowly than the education-search average over the latest 12 weeks versus the same weeks a year earlier.
-45% YoY 5/100 current

Component score: 55.6/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Claim audit
A reproducible public-company Distraction Economy category now exists.

GLM 5.2 scored all 6,226 active and delisted U.S. Sharadar companies that ever exceeded $1 billion of market capitalization; the prompt, responses, membership, retries, and audit outputs are retained.

warranted
The high-relevance Distraction basket has outgrown U.S. Industrials in public-market value.

The score-70-or-higher basket is compared with all U.S. Industrials using active and delisted membership and each ticker-year's final Sharadar market-cap observation. This is a capital-allocation proxy, not proof of social harm.

warranted
Distraction businesses generate material cash flow relative to Industrials.

The daily comparison uses the core point-in-time ARQ/datekey replay and four distinct calendar quarters; the interpretation still needs business-model and causal controls.

partial
AI personalization materially increases media and advertising consumption.

Meta reports a 24% increase in Instagram time spent since Reels, a 7% view lift from Q4 2025 Facebook ranking improvements, and a 20% Threads time-spent lift from recommendation optimizations. These company measurements are not yet a consistent cross-platform or economy-wide causal panel.

partial
Measured digital leisure has risen relative to socializing.

BLS ATUS primary-activity data show television plus leisure gaming/computer use at 3.23 hours per day in 2025 versus 2.87 in 2003, while socializing fell from 0.78 to 0.58 hours; the ratio rose about 51%. Concurrent phone use is omitted.

warranted
Two reproducible weekly search-attention inputs compare AI pornography with constructive education interest.

One worldwide grouped Google Trends request places AI Porn, Best Colleges, and Trade School on a shared scale. The 52-week level ratio and the 12-week-average YoY growth differential are separately visible and separately scored at 1.5% of the total index each; English-language term choice, relative normalization, and historical revisions remain explicit caveats.

warranted
The resulting attention loss offsets a meaningful share of AI productivity gains.

This needs causal evidence and sensitivity bounds.

missing
04 Political feasibility of adjustmentThe austerity and revenue package required by the fiscal arithmetic is politically infeasible before crisis conditions. 15% weight
86 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

The arithmetic can identify a bill; it cannot prove Congress will pay it. This component asks whether voters and institutions will accept the required taxes, spending restraint, or benefit changes before markets force the issue.

How it affects the score

Combine legislative prediction markets, fiscal-policy polling, roll-call behavior, enacted primary-balance changes, and independent budget scores. Lower probability of timely adjustment produces a higher score.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
Required recurring adjustment / GDP Scored · 3.75% index weight · Doom fiscal sustainability model · as of 2026-08-05
7.9% 77/100 current
Tax-only increase over current receipts Scored · 3.75% index weight · Doom fiscal sustainability model · as of 2026-08-05
47.9% 95/100 current
2036 deficit above the 3%-of-GDP target Scored · 3.75% index weight · CBO Budget and Economic Outlook · as of 2026-08-05
3.7% of GDP 74/100 current
Modeled probability of timely sufficient fiscal package Scored · 3.75% index weight · Disclosed US enactment / IMF adjustment-scale / Gallup acceptance model; prediction markets are diagnostic · as of 2026-08-05Structured empirical base-rate model, not an exchange price. Display with the published low/base/high sensitivity; adjacent outcome contracts remain diagnostics only.
1.7% 98/100 modeled
Largest recent enacted annualized adjustment / GDP Diagnostic · zero index weight · CBO ex-ante scores for selected major enactments since 2011; diagnostic only · as of 2026-08-05Diagnostic only: ex-ante budget-window scores are annualized and divided by enactment-year GDP; this is not a permanent or realized primary-balance change.
1.3% diagnostic current
Support for significant Social Security/Medicare cost changes Diagnostic · zero index weight · Gallup Federal Budget Deficit historical trend; diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: support for one separately worded policy option is not support for the combined prudent package.
39.0% diagnostic current
Market probability FY2026 deficit/GDP is below 5% Diagnostic · zero index weight · Kalshi KXDEFGDP public API; one-year fiscal-outcome diagnostic, not package-passage probability · as of 2026-08-05Diagnostic only: one-year deficit/GDP outcome, not passage of a recurring prudent-course package; midpoint is sensitive to spread and liquidity.
10.5% diagnostic current

Component score: 86.2/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Prediction-market check

Will U.S. federal deficit-to-GDP for FY2026 be below 5%? ↗ trades at roughly 10%. It asks only whether the FY2026 deficit falls below 5% of GDP—not whether Congress passes the much larger recurring adjustment modeled here.

Claim audit
A prudent fiscal adjustment is politically difficult under current conditions.

The live model scores required adjustment/GDP, the tax-only receipts increase, projected deficit persistence, and a disclosed 1.73% base-rate estimate of timely sufficient enactment with a 0.15%-6.0% sensitivity range. This is a model, not proof of infeasibility.

partial
The prudent adjustment is far larger than selected recent enacted precedents.

Across seven major laws with contemporaneous CBO/JCT scores since 2011, none reaches the 8.33%-of-GDP recurring prudent adjustment on a simple annualized budget-window basis. The largest deficit-reducing precedent, the 2011 Budget Control Act, is about 1.33% of enactment-year GDP—roughly one-sixth of the required scale—and later laws modified its caps.

warranted
Concern about federal spending does not imply support for the principal benefit adjustment.

Gallup reports 79% worried a great deal or fair amount about federal spending in 2026, while its 2025 question found 39% favoring and 57% opposing significant Social Security and Medicare cost changes. These are separate questions and are not a calibrated package-passage probability.

warranted
Prediction markets can provide useful political and macro inputs.

Production Kalshi and Polymarket clients now paginate discovery, flatten all event markets, read executable order books, preserve native units, and archive hashed raw responses. The live Kalshi FY2026 deficit/GDP-below-5% contract was 9% bid / 11% ask on 2026-08-04; because it resolves a different event, it is corroborating evidence rather than a substitute for the enactment model.

warranted
Politicians will choose indirect adjustment before explicit austerity.

This requires historical base rates and observable policy probabilities.

missing
05 Debasement and financial repressionIf explicit adjustment fails, policymakers will lean on inflation, money creation, captive demand, and digital financial control. 10% weight
16 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

The bill can be paid visibly through taxes and cuts or less visibly through lower real returns on money and bonds. Digital rails may increase the state's ability to target, monitor, or restrict that adjustment—but that outcome is not automatic.

How it affects the score

Track inflation expectations, term premium and rate volatility, central-bank balance sheets, real yields, Treasury ownership, regulatory captive-demand measures, and concrete U.S. digital-money policy milestones.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
10-year breakeven inflation Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED T10YIE · as of 2026-08-04
2.2% 0/100 current
5y5y forward inflation Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED T5YIFR · as of 2026-08-04
2.3% 2/100 current
10-year real yield Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED DFII10 · as of 2026-08-03
2.4% 2/100 current
10-year term premium Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED THREEFYTP10 · as of 2026-07-31
0.9% 43/100 current
Federal Reserve assets / GDP Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED WALCL and GDP · as of 2026-07-29
20.7% 29/100 current
M2 / GDP Scored · 1.50% index weight · FRED M2SL and GDP · as of 2026-06-01
71.3% 28/100 current
Treasury rate volatility Scored · 1.00% index weight · Bloomberg MOVE Index · as of 2026-08-04
77.6 index 7/100 current
Federal Reserve share of market-facing federal debt Diagnostic · zero index weight · Treasury Bulletin via FRED FDHBFRBN and FDHBPIN; diagnostic only · as of 2026-01-01Diagnostic only: Federal Reserve ownership is neither compelled private ownership nor proof of capital controls.
14.8% diagnostic current
Narrow observed financial-repression flag Diagnostic · zero index weight · 10-year real yield plus coded binding exit/holding controls; diagnostic only · as of 2026-08-05Diagnostic only: true requires a negative ex-ante 10-year real yield plus a binding broad holding or exit control.
No diagnostic current

Component score: 16.3/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Claim audit
Fiscal pressure increases incentives for inflationary or repressive adjustment.

The incentive is plausible and historically grounded, but the current page lacks a regime model.

partial
The narrow current observed-repression condition is not met.

The latest matched 10-year real yield is positive and the coded U.S. panel contains no current broad capital-control or asset-confiscation law. Fed ownership is 14.8% of the constructed market-facing debt denominator; this is a diagnostic, not proof of compelled private demand.

warranted
CBDCs or digitized money will be used for wealth taxation and control.

No current U.S. policy path or conditional probability is supplied.

conceptual
Inflation expectations will unanchor and fixed-income volatility will force repression.

Breakevens, 5y5y inflation, real yields, term premium, Fed assets, M2, and MOVE are wired with thresholds and currently populated. The August 4 refresh used a visibly disclosed delayed-quote fallback for MOVE because the Bloomberg bridge timed out; the causal regime transition is not established.

partial
Asset confiscation is a likely endpoint.

The term requires a precise legal and economic definition before it can enter the score.

conceptual
06 Institutional and economic legitimacyDeclining economic and political legitimacy makes explicit fiscal adjustment harder and increases noncompliance, exit, conflict, and the risk of coercive responses. 10% weight
75 score · 100% coverage
partial
What this means

A fiscal settlement requires people to believe the economic and political bargain is legitimate enough to comply with. Trust and administrative capacity are measurable; the transitions from weak legitimacy to noncompliance, conflict, and coercion are not yet established.

How it affects the score

Use political and economic trust, perceived fairness and mobility, tax and payment compliance, verified fraud and corruption, capital flight, democratic governance, protest and unrest, executive power, surveillance, and civil-liberty indicators with predeclared thresholds.

Current numbersHigher component scores mean the evidence supports the thesis more strongly.
Trust in federal government Scored · 2.50% index weight · Pew public trust series · as of 2025-09-28
17.0% 96/100 current
Confidence in 14 core institutions Scored · 2.50% index weight · Gallup confidence in institutions · as of 2026-07-01
26.9% 95/100 current
Voluntary tax compliance Scored · 2.50% index weight · IRS tax gap · as of 2022-07-01Latest IRS tax-gap vintage refers to tax year 2022.
85.0% 67/100 current
Government-wide improper payments / outlays Scored · 2.50% index weight · GAO and OMB/FRED outlays · as of 2026-04-27Improper payments are not a fraud estimate.
2.7% 41/100 current
V-Dem liberal democracy index Diagnostic · zero index weight · V-Dem v16 via Our World in Data; diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: expert-coded latent estimate; V-Dem vintages can revise history and overlap with Freedom House.
0.6 0–1 diagnostic current
Freedom House U.S. freedom score Diagnostic · zero index weight · Freedom House 2026 via Our World in Data; diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: overlaps conceptually with V-Dem and is not an independent probability estimate.
81.0 0–100 diagnostic current
V-Dem executive centralization index Diagnostic · zero index weight · V-Dem v16 via Our World in Data; diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: V-Dem expert-coded central estimate, not a direct measure of coercive acts.
0.2 0–1 diagnostic current
V-Dem physical-integrity rights index Diagnostic · zero index weight · V-Dem v16 via Our World in Data; freedom from government torture and political killings, diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: expert-coded freedom from government torture and political killings; not a count of protest violence or all political violence.
0.8 0–1 diagnostic current
DOJ False Claims Act settlements and judgments Diagnostic · zero index weight · DOJ Civil Division; enforcement-output diagnostic only, not fraud prevalence · as of 2025Diagnostic only: enforcement output depends on capacity, case mix, timing, and damages and is not an estimate of fraud prevalence.
$6.9B diagnostic current
Federal Register listed expatriates, latest complete year Diagnostic · zero index weight · Federal Register/IRS Section 6039G lists; narrow exit diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: Section 6039G list is not total emigration; current partial year is excluded.
4889 people diagnostic current
U.S. resident foreign-asset acquisition / GDP Diagnostic · zero index weight · BEA/FRED IEAAA and GDP; broad financial-flow diagnostic, not identified capital flight · as of 2025Diagnostic only: resident foreign-asset acquisition includes ordinary investment and is not identified capital flight.
5.3% diagnostic current
Court-authorized intercept applications Diagnostic · zero index weight · Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Wiretap Table 7; narrow surveillance diagnostic only · as of 2025Diagnostic only: narrow Title III court-authorized intercept series; excludes national-security, warrantless, ordinary-warrant, and many local surveillance systems.
1735 applications diagnostic current
EFF Atlas documented local surveillance records Diagnostic · zero index weight · EFF Atlas of Surveillance; current cross-section, not a deployment time series · as of 2026-08-05Diagnostic current cross-section only: EFF Atlas records are documented agency/technology observations, not devices, people surveilled, spending, or a deployment time series.
15176 records diagnostic current
Reported U.S. political crowd events Diagnostic · zero index weight · Harvard/UConn Crowd Counting Consortium; civic-participation/stress diagnostic, not violence · as of 2025Diagnostic only: a political crowd is civic participation as well as a possible stress signal; event count alone is not unrest severity.
39152 events diagnostic current
Protest events with reported serious harm or property damage Diagnostic · zero index weight · Harvard/UConn Crowd Counting Consortium; arrests excluded, cause and severity not assigned · as of 2025Diagnostic only: reports any participant/police injury, casualty, or property damage without assigning cause or severity; arrests are excluded.
0.3% diagnostic current

Component score: 74.6/100 at 100.0% input coverage.

Claim audit
Trust in the federal government is low by the existing series.

The page reports the Pew history and latest level.

warranted
Confidence is low across multiple institutions, not only the federal government.

The fixed Gallup 14-institution average is 26.9% in 2026 versus 37.8% in its first fully populated year, 1993. Congress is 9%, the Supreme Court 27%, banks 28%, big business 17%, newspapers 17%, and television news 14%; these are survey attitudes, not direct performance measures.

warranted
Administrative leakage is relevant to institutional capacity.

CMS improper payments are measured, but CMS explicitly says they are not a fraud estimate.

partial
The latest producer vintages show material U.S. governance deterioration.

V-Dem v16 reports the U.S. liberal-democracy index at 0.571 in 2025, down 0.228 from 2004; Freedom House reports 81/100, down 12 points. Legislative constraints, expression, human rights, and judicial constraints also decline in the panel. These expert-coded, overlapping measures warrant a deterioration signal, not an inevitable-authoritarianism forecast.

warranted
Social unrest and democratic dissatisfaction are accelerating toward authoritarian government.

Democracy, civil-liberty, executive-constraint, centralization, court-authorized-intercept, current local-surveillance, and 2017–2025 political-crowd diagnostics now exist. CCC event count rose 260% from 2017 to 2025, but reported serious harm or property damage fell to 0.35% of events from 1.01%; arrests are kept separate. Court-authorized intercepts fell 58.2% from their 2015 publication-series peak. The evidence does not yet establish a broad political-violence trend or a calibrated authoritarian transition probability.

partial
AI will be used to suppress dissent and solidify command-and-control rule.

This is a scenario requiring signposts, not a warranted current-state claim.

conceptual
Evidence already on this page
Open work and update checklist
Measured capital allocation

The Distraction Economy versus Industrials

The distraction index contains companies whose revenue benefits directly when people spend more time on digital entertainment, social feeds, games, gambling, and targeted advertising. The industrial comparison is the Sharadar Industrials sector.

Distraction index constituents

Currently traded:

Historical and delisted companies included in the charts:

A company enters this index when its classifier score is at least 70/100. The membership list is fixed as of July 31, 2026 and applied backward to the company’s public-market history. Download constituents and company-level explanations ↓

Market capitalization · $T

Expected profit pools

DistractionIndustrials
Rolling four-quarter FCF · $B

Cash generation

DistractionIndustrials
Worldwide Google Trends · trailing 52-week mean

AI Porn versus constructive education

AI PornBest Colleges + Trade School

Current level ratio: . Trailing-12-week YoY growth: for AI Porn versus for constructive education. Equal-weight attention-allocation score: .

Average primary-activity hours per day

Digital leisure versus socializing

TV + leisure computer/gamesSocializing

Sources: Sharadar DAILY market cap and point-in-time ARQ filings, including delisted U.S. companies; BLS American Time Use Survey; DataForSEO Google Trends. The 2026 classifier is applied retrospectively, so the company charts are descriptive rather than an implementable historical portfolio. ATUS measures only the primary activity, omits simultaneous phone use, and has no annual 2020 estimate. Google Trends is a relative, revisable index and the worldwide English-language terms are attention proxies—not enrollment or consumption. Download the weekly search panel ↓

The choice

This is what it would take to right-size the fiscal and monetary situation in the United States.

Bring the annual deficit down to 3% of GDP and reduce the Social Security and Medicare funding gap to one year of GDP without cutting promised benefits. On current math, that means a recurring annual adjustment—or economic growth fast enough to make the bill small. The tax-led base case is a lower-growth, lower-valuation transition, not a painless accounting fix. This is why AGI moon math is so appealing: extraordinary productivity is the only believable non-austerity route that lets the country honor the promises without some combination of huge taxes, benefit cuts, inflation, or financial repression. But it has to be a sustained change in the growth regime, not a one-year AI boom.

  • The bill: New recurring resources equal of GDP, taking federal receipts from 17.5% to . The program-funding leg lasts 75 years.
  • Base-case economy and stocks: In CBO experiments of comparable scale, the GDP level ends up below baseline after ten years. The modeled corporate-rate change alone cuts after-tax earnings roughly ; adding a modest 10%–20% P/E de-rating implies a mechanical equity-value loss. A recessionary implementation could be worse.
  • What consensus expects: The IMF projects U.S. real growth of in 2026/27; CBO settles near long run. IMF global growth is , while the World Bank is at .
  • The AGI growth hurdle: To dilute today’s program gap from 297% to 100% of GDP through growth alone requires real GDP/productivity growth of / over 10 years, / over 20 years, or / over 30 years. Each range assumes the gap grows between 0% and 2% real annually.
  • Plain English: The central 20-year case needs 5.6%–7.7% real GDP growth and 5.2%–7.3% productivity growth every year—roughly two to four times the U.S. baseline. Anything less still leaves a large bill for taxpayers, beneficiaries, or holders of dollars and bonds.

Growth forecasts: IMF July 2026, World Bank June 2026, and CBO 2026–2036. Economic-impact comparison: CBO tax-financing scenarios. The AGI hurdle is a denominator sensitivity, not a forecast or proof that growth itself funds the remaining gap.

Download AGI growth sensitivity LLM-readable text
01 / The Numbers

The bill

Present-value estimates are stocks. Income and interest are annual flows. The ratios deliberately show how many current income-years sit beneath the obligation.

Total measured liabilities Debt + Social Security + Medicare
Per household Across households
Mean after-tax income BLS consumer unit,
Liabilities / mean income Approximate after-tax income-years
Federal net interest 2026 current-curve model
Explicit interest / public earnings Debt service only; excludes future program gaps
Current composition

What sits behind the headline

LiabilityTotalPer householdDefinition
Debt added since 2000 Gross public debt above the 1999 year-end baseline
Cumulative public-company income Reported quarterly net income, including 2026 filings
Debt accumulation gap Debt accrued minus cumulative company income
Debt added / cumulative income Dollar-for-dollar cumulative comparison
Daily source · annual endpoints displayed

Cumulative public-company profit versus debt added

Trillions since 2000; earnings enter when quarterly filings become public

The income series is point-in-time and survivorship-safe: U.S. domestic common stocks enter only during their public pricing windows; delisted companies remain in history; each ARQ filing adds that quarter’s net income, and later restatements add only the revision delta. The 2026 point includes filings through July 31.

Download daily cumulative CSV
02 / Households

More obligation, per household

The relevant income benchmark is survey income—not a national-accounts aggregate divided by household count.

Liability components

Total U.S. liabilities

Nominal trillions of dollars

Household burden

Liability income-years

Per-household liability divided by mean after-tax income

today
Selected years

Liabilities versus household income

Income after 2023 carries forward the latest BLS observation and is explicitly marked.
YearTotal liabilitiesPer householdMean after-tax incomeIncome-yearsStatus
03 / The Household Squeeze

Interest versus discretionary income

Discretionary income means after-tax income left after food at home, housing, transportation, healthcare, and insurance and pensions.

2023 / aligned actuals

of household discretionary income

Federal interest was against an estimated nationwide discretionary-income pool.

2026 / current-curve model

of the latest measured pool

Federal interest is now approximately per household, holding the latest measured discretionary-income benchmark constant.

Discretionary income by quintile

The average hides the distribution

Highest 20%$96k
Fourth 20%$35k
Middle 20%$15k
Second 20%$2k
Lowest 20%−$11k

The 2026 interest allocation per household is roughly half of the middle quintile’s entire measured discretionary income. This is a scale comparison, not a literal household bill.

04 / Carrying Cost

The refinancing arrives

The projection replays Treasury’s security-level maturity schedule at the current curve and follows public-debt targets from the federal baseline.

Explicit debt service Current annual interest
Annualized promise funding Level payment on the 75-year PV gaps
All-in annual equivalent per household
All-in / public earnings of household discretionary income

The first number is a current cash outlay. The second converts the Social Security and Medicare present-value gaps into a level 75-year real payment at the Trustees’ 2.3% intermediate real discount rate. They answer different questions; together they show the annual economic funding burden if the promises are honored without allowing the gaps to compound.

2004–2026 · constant-method history

Annual fiscal burden versus U.S. public-company net income

Each historical Social Security and Medicare present-value gap is converted using the same 2.3% real, 75-year annuity factor

YearInterestAnnualized gapsCombinedPublic net incomeInterest / NICombined / NI

Ratios are not meaningful in 2009 because aggregate public-company net income was negative. The 2026 point uses the current-curve interest model and rolling four-quarter company income.

Actual through 2025 · model thereafter

Federal net interest versus U.S. public-company net income

Annual trillions; company income is point-in-time rolling four-quarter Sharadar data

Treasury maturity wall

Original principal coming due

Trillions by fiscal year; cumulative share of the starting portfolio

Forward table

Interest burden, 2026–2030

YearInterestPublic net incomeRatio
05 / Productivity

More capital, modest output

Physical power, human capital, corporate cash conversion, and economy-wide output per hour expose different layers of productivity. Together they show where spending and investment are—and are not—turning into measurable output.

Real utility capex / MWh the 2004 level
Real-business real revenue growth Ex-distraction rolling four quarters as of
Five-year productivity growth Quarter-aligned through
Latest quarterly productivity growth annualized; year over year
2004 = 100 · latest point is trailing 12 months

Utility capital investment versus U.S. power generation

Sharadar U.S. Utilities-sector capex compared with EIA total generation across all sectors

Completed calendar years are followed by a 2026 live point using rolling-four-quarter Sharadar capex and trailing-12-month EIA generation. This is a system-level capital-intensity measure, not a levelized cost of electricity. Sharadar Utilities includes gas, water, and multi-utilities; EIA generation includes independent, commercial, and industrial generators.

2003 = 100 · spending inflation-adjusted

Education spending versus demonstrated learning

Census current spending per public-school pupil versus national-public grade-8 NAEP reading and mathematics

By 2024, real current spending per pupil was above 2003 while the grade-8 reading/math score index was below 2003. Normalizing NAEP scores permits a visual comparison; it does not mean the scale measures “percent knowledge,” and this chart is descriptive rather than a causal estimate.

FY2024 spending / pupil Current public-school expenditure
Grade-12 reading since 1992 NAEP scale points, 2024; bottom decile fell
Adults at literacy Level 1 or below 2023, up from in 2017; NCES cautions on response rates and assessment-mode changes
Chronically absent students 2024–25, versus pre-pandemic
The education trajectory

More credentials. Weaker measured mastery. A narrower first rung.

The system is issuing more successful-looking credentials while external assessments have weakened and high-productivity employers are investing much less in beginner talent. The last step is partly a labor-demand shock—not a pure verdict on schools—but it reduces the apprenticeship capacity that turns education into experienced human capital.

01 / Credentials

Public-school graduation, 2011–12 to 2021–22. Over a similar period, ACT-taker GPA rose from to . Neither is a fixed national mastery standard.

02 / External mastery

ACT composite, 2015 to 2025. Broader school-day testing explains much of the aggregate decline, but its more comparable mean also fell from to .

03 / Entry-level conversion

New graduates’ share of 2024 Big Tech hires. SignalFire’s latest report estimates entry-level hiring is below 2019 at Tech Majors and below 2019 at early-stage startups.

SignalFire’s proprietary Beacon AI tracks professional profiles and organizations. Its company universes and definitions changed between the 2025 and 2026 reports. The latest report also finds graduates from top-20 U.S. computer-science programs were less likely to enter a Tech Major in 2025 than the 2022 class. This is evidence of a broken school-to-work conversion channel, not proof that weaker student performance caused the hiring contraction; AI automation, post-ZIRP normalization, and leaner organizational design also matter.

The real-business productivity bridge

Real revenue growth and cash conversion outside distraction

Point-in-time rolling four quarters; U.S. public operating companies excluding score-70+ distraction businesses

Latest: FCF margin, up year over year, across companies with the same four quarters of revenue and cash-flow data. Real growth uses the latest publicly available current-vintage GDP deflator. This is a broad operating-outcome bridge—not a causal AI-productivity estimate—because mix, M&A, entry, and cyclicality also move it.

BLS nonfarm business

Output-per-hour growth

Completed annual averages through 2025, followed by the latest 2026 quarter

The 2026 point is not a partial-year average: it is the latest quarter’s year-over-year growth and the five-year CAGR measured against the same quarter five years earlier.

06 / Common Prosperity

When ordinary life pays less

The proposed bridge is behavioral: when housing, education, and basic stores of value move farther from ordinary earnings—and health and family-formation outcomes stagnate—offline life becomes less rewarding. That can increase the appeal of personalized distraction. These indicators measure the pressure; they do not, by themselves, prove that it causes distraction demand.

Median-new-home payment burden 30-year principal + interest, 20% down / median household income; since 2006 · since 1976
Big Macs / median work hour since 2006 · versus the disclosed 1976 location proxy
NVDA / Russell 2000 market cap Current IWM constituents joined to Sharadar; matched. No valid 2006 or 1976 point-in-time constituent comparison.
Life expectancy, five-year change since 2006 · since 1976
Two fixed historical anchors

What changed since 2006 and since 1976?

Every indicator uses the same requested windows when its definition and source permit it. Missing history stays visibly unavailable.

IndicatorCurrentSince 2006Since 1976

For periodic surveys, the named survey cycle spanning the anchor is used. No interpolation, retrospective IWM-membership substitution, or silent change in population definition is permitted.

1976–2026 · 20% down · current income is a nowcast

Actual mortgage payment burden

Annual principal and interest on a 30-year fixed mortgage, divided by median household income

This is a financing comparison, not a full ownership-cost index: it omits property tax, insurance, maintenance, and the existing-home mix. The result does not say 1976 was less affordable: payment burden was 26.6% then versus 27.9% now. The price itself rose from to median household incomes; 1976's 8.87% mortgage rate offset part of that price gap. The 2026 income denominator scales official 2024 Census household income by BLS median nominal weekly-earnings growth.

The Economist + BLS · documented 1976 proxy

Big Macs purchasable per median work hour

A concrete wage-purchasing-power proxy using nominal median full-time earnings

A 1976 Columbus, Nebraska McDonald’s menu lists a Big Mac at 75¢; BLS’s May 1976 CPS table reports $4.26 median usual hourly earnings, implying 5.68 Big Macs per hour. That point is a location-and-worker-population proxy, not a national average. The comparable 2000+ line uses The Economist’s U.S. price observations and BLS median full-time weekly earnings divided by 40.

Market concentration ·

One company is larger than the small-cap market

NVDA
Russell 2000

iShares supplies the current IWM constituent list; Sharadar supplies each matched company’s full market capitalization. IWM’s of ETF assets is shown only as a cross-check and is not used as “Russell 2000 market cap.” Current membership is not a point-in-time historical backtest.

Latest observable prices / latest official income

How much of one median household income?

ItemPriceIncome-years% of one income

Harvard and Penn are tuition-only sticker prices before aid, fees, room, or board. “One bar” means one troy-ounce investment bar. Gold and oil use front-month futures as tradable price proxies. Every ratio uses the latest official 2024 median household income of , so it is a gross-income comparison—not a claim that households pay these prices from one year’s cash flow.

Native-born completed fertility Children per native-born woman age 40–50; comparable series begins 2014. National 2024 TFR:
Suicide deaths / prior 10y average provisional deaths in 2025; the rate chart remains final through 2024
Adult obesity, ages 20–74 measured prevalence; since 2005–06 · since 1976–80
Life expectancy since 2006 · since 1976
1976 = 100 where available; otherwise first observation = 100

Health and family-formation trajectories

Life expectancy, suicide, measured adult obesity, and completed fertility among native-born women

Life expectancy and the comparable ages-20–74 obesity series use 1976 baselines. The CDC suicide dashboard begins in 2001, and the comparable CPS native-born completed-fertility series begins in 2014, so those series use their first observations. Birth certificates do not identify U.S.-born or citizen mothers. The CPS measure answers the nativity question directly but is lagging: it records completed births among native-born women ages 40–50, not the current-year birth rate.

07 / Demographics

A structural deficit on a narrowing base

World War II left a gross federal debt equal to 114% of GDP, but demobilization and rapid nominal growth cut that ratio by more than half within 15 years. Today the debt stock is higher than the wartime level and sits beneath a mature pay-as-you-go transfer system with fewer covered workers supporting each beneficiary.

2025 beneficiaries / 100 workers covered workers per OASDI beneficiary
1960 beneficiaries / 100 workers covered workers per beneficiary
2036 beneficiaries / 100 workers Trustees intermediate projection; workers per beneficiary
2025 gross federal debt / GDP Versus at the end of World War II
OASDI · selected years · 2026–2100 projected

More beneficiaries for every 100 covered workers

Old-age, survivor, and disability beneficiaries in current-payment status relative to workers with OASDI-covered earnings

The 1945 ratio is not a clean steady-state demographic benchmark: ongoing monthly Social Security benefits had begun only in 1940, and coverage expanded materially in the 1950s. The mature-system comparison is more defensible from roughly 1960 onward. “Beneficiaries” is broader than “pensioners” because OASDI also includes survivors and disabled workers.

Debt stock versus support capacity

The wartime debt ratio came back

Gross federal debt is annual fiscal data; the OASDI support ratio is calendar-year data.
YearGross debt / GDPBeneficiaries / 100 workersWorkers / beneficiaryInterpretation

Gross federal debt fell from of GDP in 1945 to in 1960 as wartime spending ended and nominal GDP expanded. By 2025 it was —above the WWII level—while the mature OASDI support ratio had deteriorated from 5.1 workers per beneficiary in 1960 to 2.6. The ratio does not prove insolvency by itself; it shows why stabilizing the same debt stock is harder when each worker supports more beneficiaries.

Download demographics CSV
08 / Taxing the Base

The revenue is annual. The destruction is capitalized.

A static return to the 1968–1969 federal corporate rate raises a flow of tax receipts by permanently reducing the earnings stream capitalized into equity value.

FY2025 total federal receipts Latest completed fiscal year
FY2026 projected receipts per household
FY2026 projected outlays Receipts cover
Interest / federal receipts 2026 current-curve interest model
OMB actuals through FY2025 · CBO thereafter

Total federal receipts versus outlays

Tax collections and other receipts compared with total federal spending

FY2026 CBO projection

Where federal receipts come from

SourceAmountShare

Corporate income taxes are only of projected federal receipts. “Total receipts” includes taxes, customs duties, and the smaller other-receipts category.

Selected fiscal years

The federal collection and spending ledger

FYReceiptsOutlaysDeficitSpending coveredStatus
Download federal-receipts CSV
Sustainable course

What it costs to unwind the gap

“Reasonable” is defined here as reducing the current deficit to 3% of GDP while shrinking the combined Social Security and Medicare 75-year funding gap from almost three years of GDP to one—not forcing it to zero.

Current program funding gap of current GDP
Reasonable residual gap One year of GDP; PV reduction
Total annual adjustment Recurring level-real burden; of GDP
Tax-only receipts required additional per household equivalent
75 years · 2.3% real funding rate

Choose the residual risk

fixes the current deficit; the program column funds the selected reduction in the present-value gap.
EndpointResidual program gapAnnual deficit fixAnnual program fundingTotal adjustmentTax-only receipts / GDPPer household

Timing matters: this is not a fresh 8.3%-of-GDP tax increase every year. After phase-in, tax rates remain at the higher level and generate the recurring real payment each year. The program-funding component lasts 75 years; the deficit correction must be maintained and updated as the budget and economy evolve.

The selected prudent course requires of annual program-gap funding in addition to the current-deficit correction. The per-household figure is a scale equivalent, not a proposal for a uniform household tax.

Selected endpoint · one GDP-year residual

Funding split sensitivity—not a reform proposal

The table asks how the tax requirement changes if separately specified reforms eventually reduce part of the program-gap PV.
PV reform shareRequired PV reductionNew taxesTotal receipts / GDPAll income bracketsCombined payrollTop gains + NIITCorporateVAT

The 10% row means that an actual, independently scored policy package would have to reduce the 75-year gap PV by the displayed amount. Its annual-equivalent is shown only to make the stock comparable with annual taxes. It is not a current benefit cut, and this table cannot establish whether any reform is non-catastrophic; that requires specifying timing, cohorts, benefit formulas, eligibility, premiums, and healthcare-payment changes.

The tax columns are a separate sensitivity that linearly scales JCT marginal scores. Large simultaneous hikes would produce nonlinear avoidance and macroeconomic feedback, so they are optimistic revenue estimates.

Do not add this program funding benchmark to a separate 75-year unified-deficit present value: Social Security and Medicare gaps already overlap with future federal deficits. This construction combines only a current-year deficit target with prospective prefunding.

Download funding endpoints Download sustainable tax mixes
Federal corporate rate Current rate versus the historical maximum
Static incremental receipts of the FY2026 deficit
Constant-P/E equity destruction of current public-equity value
Capital destroyed / annual tax dollar Stock of wealth versus recurring annual revenue
Static upper-bound scenario

Deficit relief versus equity repricing

Annual fiscal flows on the left; capitalized equity stock on the right

Valuation sensitivity

Earnings loss plus de-rating

P/E changeEquity lossLoss %Value lost / tax $

This deliberately aggressive static scenario applies the 31.8-point federal statutory-rate increase to positive book pretax income. It does not model deductions, foreign-source rules, credits, loss offsets, behavioral response, or the lower tax base that follows weaker investment and activity.

Operating-company FCF yield FCF / market cap
30-year Treasury yield Bloomberg USGG30YR Index
SPX forward earnings yield Bloomberg BEST P/E
VCLT long-credit yield SPX earnings-yield spread:
U.S. operating companies versus Treasuries

Free-cash-flow yield versus the 30-year

Annual endpoints from a daily point-in-time FCF reconstruction

The FCF numerator requires four reported quarters; the market-cap denominator includes the full nonfinancial, nonutility universe. Missing fundamentals therefore bias the displayed FCF yield downward.

Forward equity versus long credit

SPX earnings yield versus VCLT yield

Bloomberg annual endpoints; VCLT yield history begins in 2018

Download tax-stress scenarios Download daily FCF-yield history Download Bloomberg valuation history
09 / Read the Fine Print

Definitions matter

What the total includes

What “unfunded” means

Social Security and Medicare are changing 75-year present-value projection gaps, not fixed bonds or legal invoices. They move with demographics, benefits, taxes, healthcare costs and discount rates.

What income means

What the ratio means

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