In 2024, the U.S. government eclipsed $36 trillion in national debt. It is, afterall, the price we pay to live in a civilized society… and to destroy Iraq, Libya, Somalia… but tonight on ZeroHedge we will not be discussing how the money was spent but the nature of the expenditure itself.

Is the debt a “ticking time bomb” or do we “owe it to ourselves”? Are deficits little more than ledger entries between the Fed and the Treasury or do they have the power to make civilizations rise and fall?

Questions like these form the rift between the Austrian School of economics — Hayek, Mises, Rothbard — and the Modern Monetary Theorists — Mosler, Wray, Kelton — and are the focus of this evening’s ZH Debate.

Representing the Austrian School will be Bob Murphy, senior fellow at the Mises Institute. His counterpart, Fields Institute researcher Nathan Tankus, will make the case for MMT. Moderating the discussion will be Jack Farley, a macro aficionado who founded the Real Vision Daily Briefing and now runs his own show Monetary Matters.

Tune into the ZeroHedge homepage or X channel at 7pm ET tonight to watch LIVE. Premium and professional users may submit questions in the comment section below to be asked to the debate participants.

Below are brief summaries of each debater’s positions to help you prime for the debate.

Tankus is offering a special discount (73%) for ZeroHedge readers to his econ newsletter Crisis Notes. The discount may be accessed here: http://crisesnotes.com/zerohedge.

Bob - a committed analogy generator - summed up his views on the entirety of MMT with a rather humorous analogy below during his debate with Warren Mosler, the man largely credited as MMT’s founder:

Tune in tonight at 7pm ET for the economist showdown. Sign up for professional or premium now to submit a question below.