Two generations of traders and investors have seen only expansionary Fed policy for the past 20 years and assume this is permanent ('always will happen'), creating dangerous complacency about currency and financial system stability.

Japan kept inflation low despite high debt because Japanese corporations and households are massive savers in foreign reserve currencies (dollars, euros, pounds), which reduces inflation pressure because capital stays offshore rather than chasing domestic goods.

The third element insulating Japan from stagflation is a unique cultural and institutional framework where people save in low-return government bonds with zero real returns, effectively making themselves poorer—a sacrifice that cannot be replicated in the US or elsewhere.

Debt-to-GDP is a misleading metric because GDP can be artificially inflated by government spending and increased debt (pushing up the denominator), while interest expense is a better measure of fiscal sustainability because it represents actual cash outlays.

US government policy follows the pattern of creating fiscal imbalances and then using higher taxes as a tool to justify issuing even more debt, not to pay it down—governments claim they'll raise taxes to reduce deficits but then issue new debt anyway without collecting sufficient revenue.