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“Everyone is always in debt” Assume this is true & that death erases all debt (the latter is true most places I think). Is that a bad thing per se? I can see
by einarvollset 7y ago
“Everyone is always in debt”
Assume this is true & that death erases all debt (the latter is true most places I think).
Is that a bad thing per se? I can see it being obviously bad if we’re saying debt as in debtors prison. As if being in debt enslaved you and traps you - this was how things used to work in some places for sure.
But assuming it’s debt that cannot enslave (big assumption, sure: see US student debt..)
Isn’t debt the creditor extending leverage and (in the right circumstances, see above) sharing some of that leverage with the debtor?
In the OP’s case - would it be very hard to envisage a scenario where this bloke could have a more efficient boat and computer? Where’s that would give him leverage that in turn would create more value for himself and whatever he chose than the debt he owed?
I think sometimes people take instruments that sometimes encourage or enable very bad things and then blame the tool. I can think of knives, guns, cash, etc.
Debt is probably the same thing? Bad if wielded by powerful forces that essentially allow enslavement, but powerfully good if not?
Just a thought experiment for sure.
- smallbigfish 7y agoMy simplistic approach to credit: it allows people to buy stuff they can't afford but it drives prices up artificially. Lots of things would be cheaper if people couldn't afford to "produce" money.
- einarvollset 7y agoYes but. If you take “cash” or “money” out of it, do you still agree with your own argument? What if you said “lots of things would be less valuable if nobody could cooperate to build anything”? Again, arguing in good faith.
- smallbigfish 7y agoWell, maybe. But I've learned that you can't take money out of "it". Even in places that strive to do so. If we could we could actually reach some utopia. Communism would become highly desirable.
- einarvollset 7y agoI think I probably disagree. Hear me out. 1. “Money” = cash. (Hard to argue with that I think) 2. Cash is simply a more efficient means of exchange or store of value than custom IOUs (checks basically) or barter (I need milk, you have C++ code. Durrrr?) I don’t think you want to take “money” out of anything if you agree that money is the above. That would bar the ability of people to encode trust or information or relationships into pieces of paper (or gold or code or whatever). (Don’t freak out: relationships are encoded on paper and in gold every day; eg weddings) So yeah. I think cash (and maybe debt - as per original comment) might be a very powerful tool. Which we should be very careful with.
- detcader 7y ago"The Dispossessed" by Le Guin was helpful for me to think about these problems, which I found went deeper than I thought as a younger person. "IOU"...who is owed? Who owes? Who needs milk?
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoHaven't been in debt since I was 40 (decade+ ago). Paid off the house and buy vehicles for cash. Debt is avoidable.
- jdmichal 7y agoDebt may be avoidable, but avoiding it is not necessarily advisable. I got a car note at 2%. I didn't pay a penny early... It was practically free money. 0% loans, like furniture places do sometimes, are a no brainer between inflation, liquidity, and time-value.