That's what the Z Man calls it on Grace and Steel podcast 78, which inspired this podcast by yours truly.Credit has been around for about as long as money has been, since the first caveman Wimpy promised to pay next Tuesday for a hamburger today.
But super-easy credit money, thanks to the Federal Reserve's zero interest rate policy, and gigantic quantities of it, thanks to banks too big to fail, is a recent phenomenon, and it has funded the transformation of industry after industry--not in a good way, of course. When you examined what has happened and why, the term "strip mining" comes to mind.
What could possibly go wrong, with millions of consumers maxed out on seven-year car loans, $16,000-per-family credit card debt, tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and maybe a home mortgage to boot? And no problem, really, with major corporations borrowing money to buy back their own stock. And it's all good, $20 trillion in on-the-books FedGov debt, with about ten times that in unfunded liabilities.
Nope, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Everything is going to be just fine.
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Pete Ferron
