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The point of paying off loans at this point is so that when the whole system breaks down and people are looking for someone other than themselves to hold the ba

The point of paying off loans at this point is so that when the whole system breaks down and people are looking for someone other than themselves to hold the bag, you have no business relations with anyone and nobody with a reason to point at you. Folks who are deeply entangled in the financial system will have a lot of potential enemies if the system fails to supply the expected standard of living to everyone. Folks who are basically self-sufficient with no major financial commitments can ride it out in obscurity. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be / For loan oft loses both itself and friend." -- Polonius, from Hamlet

njarboe 6y ago
If you own property there is not obscurity or hiding from the system. Your name is on the dead and on view for the public (especially with the new law recently passed restricting the privacy of shell corps).
- nostrademons 6y ago
  Right, but the point is to avoid people caring about you, not people knowing about you. It's fine to have your name out there and on some public records about where you live if everybody is indifferent to your existence. It gets dicey when you owe somebody money, and they owe somebody else money, and then when there's not enough money to go around they're like "Shoot, where can I find some money? I know, I'll turn the screws on people who already owe me something and just collect what I'm owed." Little details like the precise payback terms of the loan and recourse available tend to get lost when court systems aren't functioning, and people only think "Oh, who owes me money that I can collect from?" (As a side note, this is an important and often-overlooked point about mass surveillance. There's a huge difference between large data-hoovering organizations knowing about you and large organizations caring about you. Most people's best defense against identity theft or blackmail isn't cybersecurity, it's boringness, and the law of large numbers.)

njarboe 6y ago

If you own property there is not obscurity or hiding from the system. Your name is on the dead and on view for the public (especially with the new law recently passed restricting the privacy of shell corps).

nostrademons 6y ago
Right, but the point is to avoid people caring about you, not people knowing about you. It's fine to have your name out there and on some public records about where you live if everybody is indifferent to your existence. It gets dicey when you owe somebody money, and they owe somebody else money, and then when there's not enough money to go around they're like "Shoot, where can I find some money? I know, I'll turn the screws on people who already owe me something and just collect what I'm owed." Little details like the precise payback terms of the loan and recourse available tend to get lost when court systems aren't functioning, and people only think "Oh, who owes me money that I can collect from?" (As a side note, this is an important and often-overlooked point about mass surveillance. There's a huge difference between large data-hoovering organizations knowing about you and large organizations caring about you. Most people's best defense against identity theft or blackmail isn't cybersecurity, it's boringness, and the law of large numbers.)