+1 for the Graeber quote. I wasn't familiar with it but makes sense he would have originated it. Dovetailing that with this Ask HN theme: When you realize that bog-standard consumer loan amortization formulae are arbitrary and not grounded in any fundamental reality more detailed than "the lender gets something in addition to the amount lent", it's eye-opening. I didn't really recognize that until after reading his Debt: The First 5000 Years, but it put alternatives I learned about in business school, like zero-coupon bonds (special to corporates, bondholders, and banks) into context. (Yes, I'm familiar with the statement flaws that others have commented before about his works)