So with your example of buying equipment… So you’re now saddling your business with debt. Why wouldn’t you get a second loan when you pay off the first one? You take another loan to open up another location, and once that’s paid off you could open up two more.
But uh oh…One of the stores was in a bad location, but you’re still on the hook for the loan. Now you’re dragging the good, successful businesses down for the next 30 years
But uh oh… You’re too old to manage all this anymore, so you sell it to an up and comer. But they took a loan to buy it, which the business has to pay back
But uh oh… Your success exploded, and because you took all this investment you’re now required to become publicly traded. Your shareholders demand you become as big as apple or die trying, and if you refuse they boot you out and put a consultant brained CEO at the helm
That’s how it works in America. You have to grow at an every increasing rate if you ever take the money, and the end result is always enshitification. And it happens fast - in my lifetime we went from zero national debt to $40 trillion, we’ve had 3 boom-busts, homes are up like 10x, and what happens? People are financing a single meal over several pay periods and going further into debt.
On the flip side, inequality is growing exponentially. Because basically everyone, at every stage of doing anything, has to add in the cost of interest
I just don’t see any upside beyond “this is the way things are done”. I also don’t see a path between here and a different form of money without a total economic crash, but I think that’s inevitable regardless, even the world bank is coming up with alternatives
But I think the first step is we treat debt as immoral. It’s what got us in this mess, even if they exist in some form we should treat the concept as shameful
Great!
So with your example of buying equipment… So you’re now saddling your business with debt. Why wouldn’t you get a second loan when you pay off the first one? You take another loan to open up another location, and once that’s paid off you could open up two more.
But uh oh…One of the stores was in a bad location, but you’re still on the hook for the loan. Now you’re dragging the good, successful businesses down for the next 30 years
But uh oh… You’re too old to manage all this anymore, so you sell it to an up and comer. But they took a loan to buy it, which the business has to pay back
But uh oh… Your success exploded, and because you took all this investment you’re now required to become publicly traded. Your shareholders demand you become as big as apple or die trying, and if you refuse they boot you out and put a consultant brained CEO at the helm
That’s how it works in America. You have to grow at an every increasing rate if you ever take the money, and the end result is always enshitification. And it happens fast - in my lifetime we went from zero national debt to $40 trillion, we’ve had 3 boom-busts, homes are up like 10x, and what happens? People are financing a single meal over several pay periods and going further into debt.
On the flip side, inequality is growing exponentially. Because basically everyone, at every stage of doing anything, has to add in the cost of interest
I just don’t see any upside beyond “this is the way things are done”. I also don’t see a path between here and a different form of money without a total economic crash, but I think that’s inevitable regardless, even the world bank is coming up with alternatives
But I think the first step is we treat debt as immoral. It’s what got us in this mess, even if they exist in some form we should treat the concept as shameful