7 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Sep 2023 \ parent \ on: What's NOT a scam that everyone thinks is a scam? meta
Saving in a medium of exchange makes a lot more sense to me than saving in one particular commodity that you may or may not want in the future. Of course, it would be ideal if the medium of exchange were not a depreciating fiat currency.
I don't see the connection between debt and city planning. Either one can exist without the other. Whatever the "drinking bleach" part is, I missed it. Without being too specific, I live in the middle part of North America where there are very few land use restrictions and there's lots of available land for homes. Absent a space constraint, people generally don't want to live in multi-family housing and there's no good reason to impose it on anyone.
As far as being able to find a place to live in the future, I feel like you just fundamentally don't understand market allocation. Things have to be priced such that people can afford them or the seller doesn't get anything for their goods.
Yes of course its nicer to save in a medium of exchange rather than a commodity. The people of the Philippines do that only because of the fact that the peso is depreciating.
I do of course understand market allocation, but I understand market allocation as it applies to debt as well. Surely you can afford to pay off a 10 year loan on a house....surely you can pay a 20 year loan on a house....surely you can pay a 30 year loan on a house and so on and so forth until the debt term is the entire lifespan of the person.
So the connection between debt and city planning. I understand it doesn't make sense at first economically. We have to remember that economics is a phenomena of human action. As such, this is sort of an issue with human psychology. People buy houses in single family zoning BECAUSE it is single family zoning. BECAUSE its illegal to build multi-family structures. They can afford to buy this luxury as well. So when you do run into space constraints, the suggestion to change the zoning makes the people there feel very angry. They bought that building because it was going to increase in value as the city around them grew. If you build a multi-family structure in their area, its going to reduce their home value. They don't like that, so they lobby against it.
Whereas without debt, people might be more upset about buying a property they can't expand.
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Gotcha. That's a nice point about how city planning gets entrenched. It's very much part of the general NIMBYism that's ruining many American cities. It just doesn't apply to my situation.
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It sounds like you're using bleach to wash your clothes instead of trying to drink it lol (in other words, you're using debt right. The psychology it can cause other people hasn't affected you)
I just don't trust people in general to maintain that over the long run.
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People buy all sorts of stuff they regret. I'm not sure debt is qualitatively different.
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