Plain Talk on America's
$40 Trillion Problem.
The national debt. Money printing. The Fed. You hear the phrases every day — almost nobody bothers to explain them. Rich Ontario does. No fluff. No jargon. No team jersey. Just the system, finally explained the way it should have been all along.
Born in Detroit.
Writing for the rest of us.
I'm Rich Ontario. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and spent years watching regular people — my neighbors, my family, my city — get steamrolled by an economy nobody ever bothered to explain to them.
I wrote 40 Trillion Problems for the average American who's been told the economy is too complicated to understand. It isn't. It's just been kept that way on purpose.
Read more about RichThe honest, jargon-free
explanation you were never given.
Every American has heard the phrases "national debt" and "money printing" a thousand times. Almost no one — not on cable news, not in a textbook — has actually sat down and explained, in plain English, what those phrases mean for the dollar in your pocket.
40 Trillion Problems fixes that. It's a clear-eyed, plainspoken walk through how America stacked up $40 trillion of debt, who actually holds it, what the Federal Reserve really does, and why simply "printing more" is the most expensive lie in modern politics.
It is not a left book. It is not a right book. It's a citizen's book — written for people who are tired of being talked down to about their own country's economy.
- How $40 Trillion Got Built
The decisions, decades, and bipartisan habits that quietly stacked the bill — without you ever voting on it.
- Why "Just Print More" Isn't a Solution
Inflation as the hidden tax: more dollars, same eggs, same gas, same rent. The math no one wants to say out loud.
- The Fed, Treasury & Inflation, In Plain English
Who actually pulls the levers, who sells the IOUs, and how the dollar in your pocket gets quietly diluted.
- What It Means For Your Paycheck
How interest payments, money supply, and policy collide with your groceries, your rent, and your retirement.
What readers are saying.
Early reactions to 40 Trillion Problems.
"Finally — a book that explains the national debt the way someone would explain it to a friend at the kitchen table. No suit, no jargon, no spin."
"Rich does what most economists refuse to do: tell the truth in plain English. This should be required reading in every high school in America."
"I've avoided this topic my whole adult life because it felt impossible to understand. Two chapters in I realized it wasn't me — it was how everyone else was explaining it."
The Citizen's Guide to the $40 Trillion Debt
10 Things Every American Should Know.
A free, plainspoken PDF companion to the book. Drop your email and I'll send it to you instantly — no spam, no fluff, no political team jersey. Just the moving parts of the system, explained the way they should have been all along.
Smart, plain-English economics — straight to your inbox.
Once a week. Something happening in the economy, broken down without the cable-news theater. Same voice as the book.