Your 5 weekly reads:

Range Takeaway: Two weeks ago, we flagged rising long-term interest rates as a key risk for the economy and markets. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears to share that concern: the Treasury doubled its planned purchases of longer-dated Treasuries, aiming to support bond prices and ease borrowing costs. The move pushed yields lower, but relief was short-lived. For a sustained decline in borrowing costs (and improved housing affordability) we believe investors need greater confidence that inflation is under control and government spending is on a more sustainable path.

Federal debt crossed $40 trillion this week. It’s a milestone not worth celebrating.

Interest payments on a debt load this large are suffocating. At over $1 trillion annualized, the government spends more on interest than on veterans’ programs, education, transportation, and homeland security combined.

Debt and deficits are supposed to rise during crises. They did after the Great Financial Crisis and again during COVID. What’s different now is that the deficit is near 6% of GDP amid solid growth and record-high markets.

Americans don’t owe this debt personally, but it isn’t free. Rising interest costs crowd out other government priorities and raise borrowing costs for businesses and households.

The obvious fixes are higher taxes or lower spending. Policymakers have shown little appetite for either. There is a third path: growth. Nominal GDP grew 6.5% over the past year. If that pace holds, the deficit could return to its historical average by 2030. For now, the bond market is skeptical: investors are demanding the highest yields in decades to lend long-term.

Growth can buy Washington time. America used this playbook after World War II, when debt fell rapidly relative to the economy. But back then, the Fed capped Treasury yields, and inflation quietly shifted the bill to savers. This time, the bond market gets a vote.

Advisors often charge about 1% of your assets each year, and the funds they purchase on your behalf can charge about 0.4% in expense ratios. All in, you could be looking at a fee of ~1.4% of your total investable assets.

The rate doesn’t change each year. The bill does. The S&P 500 returned 25.0% in 2024 and 17.9% in 2025 — your advisor’s bill rose right along with it. For the most part, you’re not paying for harder work from your advisor. You’re paying for work the market is doing.

Suppose the market returns ~7% each year, and inflation eats 2-3% of it, leaving you with a 4-5% real return. If your advisor and fund fees take 1.4%, that “rounding error” fee shaves about 30% of your return, every year. On a $1 million portfolio over 30 years, that’s nearly $1.1 million in fees and more than $1.5 million in forgone compounding.

Range charges 0% AUM fees.¹ Our members pay one transparent, all-in membership fee instead.

As parents get ready for kids to go back to school, we’ve been getting more questions around Trump Accounts.

Range financial planner Matt Ragone, CFP, broke down the mistake he keeps seeing: families treating a Trump Account like a college fund, when it isn’t the most effective place for education savings. Withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income even when the money goes to tuition, unlike a 529, where qualified education withdrawals can be tax-free.

Watch his full take on Instagram.

You know high expense ratios can be a drag on your portfolio. This is how you can check your own accounts to see if you could cut down on fees.

Ask Rai: “What am I paying in fund expense ratios across all of my accounts, and what will those fees cost me over the next 20 years?” Rai will go fund by fund across every account you hold, flag each expense ratio, and show what each one is costing you. At Range, we build member portfolios around the lowest expense ratios we can find, and we don’t charge an AUM fee,¹ so more of your money stays invested and hard at work.²

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