Okay, technically they are correct that liabilities and debts are two different parts of a balance sheet, but the original piece is a pop economy piece intended for a general audience, and it gave that audience a good intuition about what the underlying economics are. This is just splitting hairs about how jargon is deployed when talking to laypeople
The five balance sheets do add to $1.3500 trillion, but only if every liability is treated as debt.
Okay, technically they are correct that liabilities and debts are two different parts of a balance sheet, but the original piece is a pop economy piece intended for a general audience, and it gave that audience a good intuition about what the underlying economics are. This is just splitting hairs about how jargon is deployed when talking to laypeople