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For better or for worse, we've just lived through several decades of rock bottom interest rates. Sure, you ask someone who's 60 or 70 years old, they'll tell y
by michaelt 2y ago
For better or for worse, we've just lived through several decades of rock bottom interest rates.
Sure, you ask someone who's 60 or 70 years old, they'll tell you debt is slavery, you'll end up paying back twice what you borrow, and if you're out of money at the end of this month and you take out a loan you'll be even worse off at the end of next month leading to a spiral of debt. Being disciplined with money is crucial to your family's wellbeing. Because they lived through periods of incredibly high interest rates and saw that stuff happening first-hand.
You ask a 40 year old, though? For most of their adult lives interest rates have been below 1% as the economy staggered from one financial crisis to another. Their lived experience is that buying a car on credit has almost no downsides, you certainly don't end up paying 100% more, you pay perhaps 5% more to get the car 2 years earlier. Even college-educated folk who operates spreadsheets for a living could convince themselves it was better not to pay off their mortgage, better to put that money into the stock market.
It remains to be seen how modern attitudes towards debt will respond to non-zero interest rates. I hope it doesn't go too badly...