Terry Savage, Tribune Content Agency

Will they or won’t they cut interest rates in September? All eyes are on the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell. He is seen as the all-powerful Wizard of Rates, but there’s more to the interest rate market than just one man. The buyers of our national debt — our IOUs — have a big say in what happens to interest rates.

The U.S. national debt now stands at more than $37 trillion. We (the taxpayers) will pay about $952 billion in interest on our national debt in 2025. That’s up 8% from last year. And it totals more than 18% of all federal revenues collected this year.

Those are MEGO numbers. That stands for My Eyes Glaze Over! But don’t look away. If we didn’t owe so much money — borrowed by selling Treasury bills, notes and bonds — we coul

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