As an example of the fiat money tricks - Soc. Sec. has been collecting more than it gives out. A few years back, SS fund was channeled into the bottomless pit of the general fund by the Treasury and replaced with Treasury IOU bonds.
In the past US Treasury debt was recycled by the excess petro-dollars from Arabs, and held by competing trade nations like Japan and China to keep the dollar value high. Some call it currency manipulation.
Today, there is a massive bubbly amount of sovereign debt besides the US floating around. Shrinking demand due to a lack of trust for this sovereign debt has resulted in Central Banks of the US, Japan, Europe buying their own debt. Japan is the master of this chicanery.
Some would call it cheating.
The world's declining GDP and increasing debt is an equation stumbling towards a day of reckoning.