I honestly do not understand this perspective and would like to be enlightened.

The only way a young person could be given a house without owing any debt would be if someone else bought it for them or if the government paid workers to build houses for everyone. However, if the government paid people to build houses without any payments in return the government would be collected the debt which it would then hold. This doesnt reduce any debt globally it just transfers it.

Maybe you could argue it is better for the debt to be on government than individuals but that doesnt address how no debt is good. No debt would just mean zero houses.

Previous generations bought homes in early 20s, and paid off their mortgages in 7-10 years, so by their mid-30s their housing expenses were rather low. And inflation helped with the payments too.

Our generation gets 25-year mortgages, and very little help from inflation.

When were you born, and what country do you live in?

As someone born in the 1980s in the USA, I don't think this is true. I believe that the 30 year mortgage has been the standard here since sometime in the mid 20th century.

My my area, which had median home prices most years, houses were 40-60% less expensive in real terms.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there far fewer homes and people made a lot less money.

Worse, we would end up with the student loan effect, which would mean that houses, like education, would explode in cost since there are no constraints on cost when you can just "charge it".

>Maybe you could argue it is better for the debt to be on government than individuals but that doesnt address how no debt is good. No debt would just mean zero houses.

You don't need a new house for every young person.

You can reuse houses across generations. 100, 200 and even 500 year old houses are not uncommon in Europe for example, if you build them properly (and not the el-cheapo wood US construction). They're not any kind of ruin either, but highly coveted city and rural real estate.

Plus, there's an existing pool of a hundred million houses or close, so you wouldn't have to worry about getting them a house either.

Lastly, debt means money owed. A government can also money it actually has (e.g. form taxation, dropping military expenses and so on). Presumably there's still that.

Not to mention that the government could still ask for payments for the houses, but for a much smaller interest, and without expecting a profit, allowing people to repay them much earlier.

This is not some communism plot, places from England to Singapore, most of EU and beyond have done public housing in different degrees. England's public housing plan, for example, implemented for the most part of the 20th century, turned it from a country of extreme poverty slums (think L.A.'s seedier districts but in Dicken's London and Manchester and elsewhere) into an acceptable middle class (they'd call it "working class") existence.

Using debt for homes, cars, education, and investments are generally assumed to be able to out grow the costs of that borrowing. For example, ideally a better education now means you can probably make more money over time, offsetting those costs and overall ending up much better than without borrowing. Its not stealing, to phrase like that is wrong.

If you only see these things as "nice", your should reevaluate what you value.

Personally I think we view education entirely too much as an individual responsibility. The worker isn’t the only one who benefits from the education. Companies, investors and society at large does too. So to push that cost entirely onto the individual and force a possible lifetime of debt is unreasonable. And that’s only possible because of debt.

Housing and cars - I’d agree. But for me the problem with debt is it seems like a ploy to squeeze more and more out of people who don’t realize the deal, or who because of encroaching levels of debt don’t have a choice in society.

If debt were purely opt in and people could simply not get into it while still having a first world life then I wouldn’t disagree with you at all. But as it stands debt is a requirement that permanently endentures far too many of our citizens.

>Using debt for homes, cars, education, and investments are generally assumed to be able to out grow the costs of that borrowing. For example, ideally a better education now means you can probably make more money over time, offsetting those costs and overall ending up much better than without borrowing. Its not stealing, to phrase like that is wrong.

All of the above things have stopped worked for the majority of middle class and most working class people for the past 30+ years in the US (and lots of EU).

"a better education now" doesn't "means you can probably make more money over time", but leaves you straddled with a large debt, as just another person with a degree in a huge pool of people who might not even make as much as their parents did.

And the huge debt crisis shows that people and countries alike increasingly can't "out grow the costs of that borrowing".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickwwatson/2018/03/08/the-m...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/06...

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-...

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

Debt is how the supply of money grows.

So, sure, if a few people don't want to have any debt, that's great. But if everyone stopped borrowing we'd be in a lot of trouble.

There are other ideas about how we could grow the money supply of course. Perhaps the Federal Reserve could mail everyone some cash every month.

> So, sure, if a few people don't want to have any debt, that's great. But if everyone stopped borrowing we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Why would we be in trouble. Explain it to me like I know nothing about economics?

That's a big ask. Instead I'll point you to the best video I've ever seen on this subject, by Ray Dalio. It's long, but worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0

This will explain the opposite: https://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years/dp/1612191290

You are basically arguing that most people should never be able to own real estate, doomed to live as perpetual tenants. Over the course of a lifetime, that is actually more expensive than a 30 year mortgage.

And I think you're arguing that the disappearance of mortgages would have no effect on real estate prices. IMO, and that of many others, loose credit has been the major factor driving up property prices to their current insane heights.

There's a place for credit, but right now I think it does more harm than good.

On the contrary - no mortgages would mean I couldn't afford a house, and someone richer than me would buy it and loan^H^H^H rent it to me. They'd get richer, and do the same to the next person who couldn't quite afford to buy a house. You've described a society closer to feudalism than efficient housing.

And you would have a house to live in, while your own investments are diversified. How did homeownership work in Detroit?

Actually many countries around the world don’t have a healthy borrowing market and they do fine with real estate.

Some people have to live with family for a while or build in stages. It’s a challenge, but it’s doable.

yeah sorry that's not the life I want. I'm glad I didn't grow up in some country like argentina or whatever that has a no lending where I would have to live with my parents until I'm 35 and take my girlfriends to love hotels.

>yeah sorry that's not the life I want

Yeah, sorry, the life you want might not be sustainable and could be detrimental to society.