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This was all part of the plan to build a nation of mindless debt slaves. It was very effective.

imtringued 4y ago
When you save money and never spend it, someone must remain a debt slave until you have spent your money. From a macroeconomic and historic perspective this has never happened which is why it is necessary to have inflation erode debts as otherwise people would be eternal debt slaves.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
It's actually true, in a way. There was a worry after WW2 that a large number of young, single men, trained in combat and now returning home, would destabilize American politics, especially if they could not be absorbed by the labor market. One response was the GI bill, so that some could go back to school. That would help to slow their return to the job market, and hopefully prevent unemployment. Another was the 30-year mortgage. If these men were tied down with obligations, and families, and houses, they would cease to be a volatile element in society, the thinking went.
- lordnacho 4y ago
  The young men -> instability theory is one I've heard several times. It makes sense, but is there evidence or some sort of seminal article about it?
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    In GP's context, no. The basics of the theory is a lack of incentives for young men to play the game, which leads to either proactive destruction or passive destruction. War usually leads to a surplus of women and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity), incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. In fact, some would say starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war). It's difficult to get decisive evidence as the phenomenon tends to happen at the same time as other things, and it basically devolves to game theory. At the very least, it seems like a very, very bad idea to incentivize the population with the largest capability to destroy, to destroy. Especially when they are necessary to create, educate and set an example for the next generation of men.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      Young men are excess capital and excess capital must be destroyed in capitalism. The interest rate on money is guaranteed to be zero, the capital yield of an employed human is negative if the yield of the capital they produce is negative, i.e. unsold products that spoil over time. Thus we fire them, to avoid the negative yield of labor and instead hold onto zero yielding money. The unemployed still need to eat, so they bypass the division of labor and just take what they need. To avoid this cost, you must starve them to death or outright kill them. A rebellion is an act to pass the negative yield of labor back to the owners of financial capital and land but all at once instead of slowly each year. To prevent rebellions, the government subsidizes the owners of financial capital and land by paying welfare, a bribe to make the abandoned behave by making them navigate bureaucracy and blame them instead of the original cause of their dependency on the bureaucracy. This is a subsidy, because the cost is not actually paid by the owners of financial capital but by the portion of the working class that is employed so that they hate the recipients of their taxes instead of the owners of financial capital and land that that created and benefited from the class of artificially helpless people.
    - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
      I don't disagree with your points, but I think lordnacho's question is a reasonable one. So, in a sibling to your post, I've included one link. But I think the same type of question could be asked about your post. For example, the idea of "surplus men": I've heard this before, but is there some statistical "systems theory" view of history that can give us plots/data from which this will jump out? Some parts of this are obviously true: > War usually leads to a surplus of women There are certainly many stories after the American Civil War about this -- about women who were unable to find husbands after the war. > and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity) This makes some sense (jobs, mates in particular), but I'm not sure about land, wealth; that could easily remain in the hands of elites. > starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war) I absolutely see this -- elites gain some geostrategic prize, at the expense of other mens' lives -- but, to clarify, I don't think the mechanism by which this helps elites is reduced domestic competition among men, since they're already elites; they've already won the domestic competition. > incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. It feels like the examples of ISIS, Hikikomori, and monasticism (Western and Eastern) are all relevant here. But it would help if a clear line of evidence could be assembled for one of those examples. I sense that your argument comes from a conservative direction, but I'm aware of queer/feminist writing to the same effect, e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp/0252079698 https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp... I haven't read this beyond the summary, and don't know if its evidence is actually any good. But it's sometimes worth noticing when opposing political orientations agree on some underlying assumption. Actually the same idea appears in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in which part of her fantasy is that men's value has been reduced to peeing in a circle around the village to mark the territory. She does recognize that this "utopia" cannot last though (which she deals with by having a man invent the utopia in the first place -- "of course it's flawed"). So, plenty of people on the other side of the aisle do seem to agree with you about the "facts".
  - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
    This appears to be a 2016 column from a local paper, but it includes a number of interesting quotes from the time period: https://sites.google.com/a/lanepl.org/columns-by-jim-blount/2016-articles/housing-not-unemployment-major-concern-when-world-war-ii-veterans-returned-home https://sites.google.com/a/lanepl.org/columns-by-jim-blount/... I think it gives a decent window into what was being discussed then, as I understand it. It's a little hard to Google references that give a feeling for the issues that were on peoples' minds at the time (like the precedent of the Bonus Army), because attention/salience (what "matters" in the culture) has changed a lot since then (and even since 2016). I had thought that maybe the bill itself would have a revealing preamble, but it doesn't really. The official name does say something though: "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944". I think people were very interested in taking lessons from WW1 and avoiding the same problems that had occurred afterwards. Not only would the GI Bill be emblematic of this, but also, say, the difference between the Marshall Plan and the Treaty of Versailles.
mtoner23 4y ago
the 30 year mortgage was one of the greatest financial innovations of our time. Allowing anyone to pay off 2022 costs in 2052 dollars. I understanding hating credit card debt, buy now pay later, and other horrible "financial engineering" but the 30 year mortgage is overall a great thing for everyday people.
- jdashg 4y ago
  If everyone gets the benefit, does anyone really get the benefit? In a zero-sum game of prospective home owners bidding against eachother, if both of two opponents the option of longer mortgages, does affordability actually increase? The sticker price just gets bigger.
  - faangiq 4y ago
    Well, now you have a layer of banks collecting interest on what was previously a cash purchase at 1/100 the price. So, yes, someone is winning this game.
  - mtoner23 4y ago
    Markets are not zero sum!
juanani 4y ago

When you save money and never spend it, someone must remain a debt slave until you have spent your money. From a macroeconomic and historic perspective this has never happened which is why it is necessary to have inflation erode debts as otherwise people would be eternal debt slaves.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

It's actually true, in a way. There was a worry after WW2 that a large number of young, single men, trained in combat and now returning home, would destabilize American politics, especially if they could not be absorbed by the labor market. One response was the GI bill, so that some could go back to school. That would help to slow their return to the job market, and hopefully prevent unemployment. Another was the 30-year mortgage. If these men were tied down with obligations, and families, and houses, they would cease to be a volatile element in society, the thinking went.

lordnacho 4y ago
The young men -> instability theory is one I've heard several times. It makes sense, but is there evidence or some sort of seminal article about it?
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  In GP's context, no. The basics of the theory is a lack of incentives for young men to play the game, which leads to either proactive destruction or passive destruction. War usually leads to a surplus of women and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity), incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. In fact, some would say starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war). It's difficult to get decisive evidence as the phenomenon tends to happen at the same time as other things, and it basically devolves to game theory. At the very least, it seems like a very, very bad idea to incentivize the population with the largest capability to destroy, to destroy. Especially when they are necessary to create, educate and set an example for the next generation of men.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Young men are excess capital and excess capital must be destroyed in capitalism. The interest rate on money is guaranteed to be zero, the capital yield of an employed human is negative if the yield of the capital they produce is negative, i.e. unsold products that spoil over time. Thus we fire them, to avoid the negative yield of labor and instead hold onto zero yielding money. The unemployed still need to eat, so they bypass the division of labor and just take what they need. To avoid this cost, you must starve them to death or outright kill them. A rebellion is an act to pass the negative yield of labor back to the owners of financial capital and land but all at once instead of slowly each year. To prevent rebellions, the government subsidizes the owners of financial capital and land by paying welfare, a bribe to make the abandoned behave by making them navigate bureaucracy and blame them instead of the original cause of their dependency on the bureaucracy. This is a subsidy, because the cost is not actually paid by the owners of financial capital but by the portion of the working class that is employed so that they hate the recipients of their taxes instead of the owners of financial capital and land that that created and benefited from the class of artificially helpless people.
  - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
    I don't disagree with your points, but I think lordnacho's question is a reasonable one. So, in a sibling to your post, I've included one link. But I think the same type of question could be asked about your post. For example, the idea of "surplus men": I've heard this before, but is there some statistical "systems theory" view of history that can give us plots/data from which this will jump out? Some parts of this are obviously true: > War usually leads to a surplus of women There are certainly many stories after the American Civil War about this -- about women who were unable to find husbands after the war. > and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity) This makes some sense (jobs, mates in particular), but I'm not sure about land, wealth; that could easily remain in the hands of elites. > starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war) I absolutely see this -- elites gain some geostrategic prize, at the expense of other mens' lives -- but, to clarify, I don't think the mechanism by which this helps elites is reduced domestic competition among men, since they're already elites; they've already won the domestic competition. > incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. It feels like the examples of ISIS, Hikikomori, and monasticism (Western and Eastern) are all relevant here. But it would help if a clear line of evidence could be assembled for one of those examples. I sense that your argument comes from a conservative direction, but I'm aware of queer/feminist writing to the same effect, e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp/0252079698 https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp... I haven't read this beyond the summary, and don't know if its evidence is actually any good. But it's sometimes worth noticing when opposing political orientations agree on some underlying assumption. Actually the same idea appears in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in which part of her fantasy is that men's value has been reduced to peeing in a circle around the village to mark the territory. She does recognize that this "utopia" cannot last though (which she deals with by having a man invent the utopia in the first place -- "of course it's flawed"). So, plenty of people on the other side of the aisle do seem to agree with you about the "facts".
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  This appears to be a 2016 column from a local paper, but it includes a number of interesting quotes from the time period: https://sites.google.com/a/lanepl.org/columns-by-jim-blount/2016-articles/housing-not-unemployment-major-concern-when-world-war-ii-veterans-returned-home https://sites.google.com/a/lanepl.org/columns-by-jim-blount/... I think it gives a decent window into what was being discussed then, as I understand it. It's a little hard to Google references that give a feeling for the issues that were on peoples' minds at the time (like the precedent of the Bonus Army), because attention/salience (what "matters" in the culture) has changed a lot since then (and even since 2016). I had thought that maybe the bill itself would have a revealing preamble, but it doesn't really. The official name does say something though: "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944". I think people were very interested in taking lessons from WW1 and avoiding the same problems that had occurred afterwards. Not only would the GI Bill be emblematic of this, but also, say, the difference between the Marshall Plan and the Treaty of Versailles.

mtoner23 4y ago

the 30 year mortgage was one of the greatest financial innovations of our time. Allowing anyone to pay off 2022 costs in 2052 dollars. I understanding hating credit card debt, buy now pay later, and other horrible "financial engineering" but the 30 year mortgage is overall a great thing for everyday people.

jdashg 4y ago
If everyone gets the benefit, does anyone really get the benefit? In a zero-sum game of prospective home owners bidding against eachother, if both of two opponents the option of longer mortgages, does affordability actually increase? The sticker price just gets bigger.
- faangiq 4y ago
  Well, now you have a layer of banks collecting interest on what was previously a cash purchase at 1/100 the price. So, yes, someone is winning this game.
- mtoner23 4y ago
  Markets are not zero sum!

juanani 4y ago