Assuming the finance a pizza bit is true, it’s a sign that the American economy is on the brink of a deflationary spiral. Debt is being created, but at some point, it will not be paid back in sufficient amounts, and then the capital to create more debt will dry up, resulting in the amount of money in the economy drying up as well. Businesses will be forced to lower prices and scale back operations, which will result in rising unemployment. Which in turn will result in even less money in the economy, perpetuating the circle.
Thats the nature of an economy where most currency circulating is actually just debt.
It’s not unlike the economies of ancient Mesopotamia. A farmer who wanted beer would write a promissory note for a few bushels of barley in some clay and give it to the brewer. The brewer could then either wait to collect it at harvest, or trade that note with someone else for something they needed. This would be passed around until it ended up in the hands of people with real wealth, and if the farmer couldn’t pay the wealthy person would take whatever they wanted.
It’s thought that this is why in many near Eastern societies women are expected to dress plainly, as they wouldn’t be chosen when the rich asshole showed up to collect on his debt. One way some societies solved this problem without violence or slavery was to eliminate all debts every several years.
This is from David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” and I highly recommend it.
In the bible, the regular elimination of all debt was called the “Jubilee”
I’d be very curious to see how many people actually use this option and for what price. I could see a family living paycheck to paycheck using this for a child’s birthday party. (Don’t misinterpret that statement as giddiness.)
at this point an economic crash seems like the only possible future, but I’m not sure if it would be good for your average person or if the top 1% would take advantage of it to get even richer
Most of the world is already in an economic recession in the sense that median purchasing power of is dropping fast.
However economist are great at fudging the numbers to show “gdp growth”. It true, absolute gdp is rising but it doesn’t mean anything if it’s evenly distributed.
