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> For me, debt is good. It allows me to consume less than I produce right now so years later I can consume more than I produce. Individuals produce less taxes
by saint_abroad 8y ago
> For me, debt is good. It allows me to consume less than I produce right now so years later I can consume more than I produce.
Individuals produce less taxes than governments spend and consume more than a paycheck. This gap is what got Greece into trouble but it certainly felt like "the good life" while it lasted.
> But at the world level, it's just some of us choosing to consume more than we produce right now, and others of us choosing to consume less than we produce right now.
Every generation since the 1950s has consumed unsustainably high returns on their taxes (by government expenditure and with maturing bonds paid by bonds issued). It's fraudulent when extraordinary returns to earlier generations are funded not by growth but sustained by new generations seeking the same returns.
- quadrangle 8y agoI find the monetization of consumption to be misleading. We can externalize costs and pretend that we're more sustainable. Or someone can invent a new technology that doesn't actually affect our core sustainability in terms of food and energy etc. but we value the new tech at billions or trillions of dollars and then we can pretend we're suddenly in the black in our accounting. The real sustainability issues need to be measured in something other than money.