When is Debt Good?

While one of the main talking points of Schiffgold is the great damage of national debt, there does exist a positive place for debt in the world. National debt is a problem because it forces the people to bear a risk that they have no desire for or understanding of. The people’s lack of care paired with the government’s incentives towards ever increasing spending mean that debt will balloon infinitely whether or not that debt actually creates anything of value. This is the key distinction that creates the difference between good and bad debt, both in individual lives, business settings, and governments. Even in government and business, this bad debt can be loosely characterized as similar to consumption debt, and good debt can be characterized as an investment. The greatest trick of that dastardly fellow J.M. Keynes was to convince us that even national debt of the sort analogous to a 41% apr loan on a 2028 Ford Raptor with custom rims was an investment. He created a causal link between undiscriminating spending and long-term national success. Good debt has a reasonable hope of making itself back, and bad debt arises from indulgence or necessity, and only decreases long-term wealth.

Even as long ago as the book of Leviticus was written, the dangers of consumption debt or “bad debt” were warned against. Farmers and the poorest of the poor were often put into debt at exorbitant rates of interest merely to avoid starving when their crops failed or they weren’t able to find anything to eat. Debt served as a sort of hope for the desperate and this role of debt is alive and well today. Consumption debt is at an all-time high, and it shows no signs of slowing down. This debt is rarely of necessity and is more often from indulgence or a lack of understanding of the consequences of debt. In the middle ages, money was referred to as barren, and this understanding accounted for an important truth. Particularly outside of the capitalist systems of the last few hundred years, debt historically skewed towards more of what we would today consider “bad” debt, which would evidence this understanding of money as barren. Money only begets money when it is actually used wisely to create something novel in the world. Many of  the beneficial business use cases for debt were done through joint risk sharing, a sort of prelude to the equity markets of today, as that was allowed in traditional Jewish and Christian communities. …