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277 points cebert | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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PostOnce ◴[] No.44361768[source]
Theoretically, credit should be used for one thing: to make more money. (not less)

However, instead of using it to buy or construct a machine to triple what you can produce in an hour, the average person is using it to delay having to work that hour at all, in exchange for having to work an hour and six minutes sometime later.

At some point, you run out of hours available and the house of cards collapses.

i.e., credit can buy time in the nearly literal sense, you can do an hour's work in half an hour because the money facilitates it, meaning you can now make more money. If instead of investing in work you're spending on play, then you end up with a time deficit.

or, e.g. you can buy 3 franchises in 3 months instead of 3 years (i.e. income from the 1 franchise), trading credit for time to make more money, instead of burning it. It'd have been nice had they taught me this in school.

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1. ocdtrekkie ◴[] No.44361944[source]
I think my understanding has come to the fact that loans and interest can smooth out your financial situation: When I was single especially I had a lot of savings building, I was making interest and making money. Then when I had a kid, I end up paying that interest back, because expenses for a kid are way above what I can healthily operate in this economy, and I needed more financial products to cover that. But that's also not forever: As soon as a kid's in school and you aren't sending an entire paycheck a month to the daycare, you can establish a upward financial pattern again.

It'd be nice if kids were an affordable choice for anyone expect Elon Musk, but you know, here we are. \o/