Re:Renting a car will be a pain until at least 2022
by lazide on Friday September 17, 2021 @03:43PM
(#28570115)
The financial system is very efficient, and allows tuning and scaling to an extent never before possible. That allows folks to squeeze pennies or build leveraged business models that previously would have not been possible.
Which is great, when things fit the model (the stocks or bonds involved pay retirees longer, make people wealthier, etc), but also allow people to build much higher castles of cards than they previously could have before something toppled them over.
Panics, crashes, defaulting on debt, etc. have been around as long (and probably longer) than we have historical records, but wow does the modern system take the cake for scale!
Re:Renting a car will be a pain until at least 2022
by imtringued on Friday September 17, 2021 @06:55PM
(#28571818)
It's a whole system of problems but it's not a hugely complicated system, at least not compared to all the bandaids that are necessary if you do not address the problems at their root.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkQn56Dtslk
Re:Renting a car will be a pain until at least 2022
by sideshowb on Friday September 17, 2021 @03:27PM
(#28569918)
Sure, I agree having a financial system predicated on growth causes a whole lotta problems. I guess I define "money" more narrowly as we could use it as a component in a very different system.
Another commentator downthread mentions the fragility vs efficiency tradeoff, and that's certainly something encouraged by financializing the economy. By making it possible to easily switch between stocks and flows (capital/income in this case pay in full / pay debt) and encouraging whatever makes firms look good in the short term, the financial system helps cause this kind of thing.
We get towers built higher but not necessarily safer.