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277 points cebert | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | 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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janalsncm ◴[] No.44362085[source]
Not sure what you mean by the “average person” here but the biggest kinds of debt are mortgages ($12T) and cc debt, student loans, and car loans (roughly 4T total).

Is your position that taking debt to buy a house is bad unless you can sell it for a profit? Is working for the mortgage lender to accomplish that not worth it?

You can avoid it by renting, but then you’re just working for the landlord, so there’s no avoiding it.

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1. immibis ◴[] No.44365873[source]
Space is expensive because of mortgages. If nobody could get a mortgage, nobody would need one. It's a race to the bottom.

Buying a home from a landlord is still working for a landlord; you just pay the present value of future cash flow in a single lump sum, like an annuity.