The Debt Economy

I remember when I first heard the words “buying debt.” It’s a way for investors to make money off of people who have incurred large amounts of debt – whatever those people pay goes straight into the pockets of the investors, who have bought the debt from companies who have originally incurred it. Those companies sell debt for pennies on the dollar. So if the debt is finally collected, the investors make out like the bandits they are. The companies who have sold the debt are also in the clear – the debt is no longer on their balance sheets.

Yeah, anything can be bought or sold. And debt, as it turns out, is enormously profitable.

Witness student debt. Sold, resold – the money goes around and around, and because students are paying interest off before principle, the debt never goes away and the payments keep coming.

Car leasing. Same deal. I realized I’m one of the rare people who is financing a partial car loan that will be paid off in 15 months (which is too much, honestly, but they spread the payments out to make the biggest vig), as opposed to someone who leases and pays every single month, trading in their vehicle and perpetually paying more, forever and ever amen. Renting, not buying.

Rent is the way of the world right now. Subscriptions have taken over everything – for a while, I was subscribing to a vitamin service, until I realized how stupid that was. Rent is how the oligarchs keep you on their hook. Amazon Prime – free shipping and TV!

And our debt is being bought and sold, bought and sold. It has nothing to do with us – our morals and values, the nature of who we are as people. We are just fodder for profit. As humans, we mean nothing to the sociopaths that run our economy. Our world.

Recently, The Atlantic published an article about Elon Musk – the terrible cost of his destruction of USAID, killing tens of thousands of Black children, while he cossets his own fourteen in a compound that houses his harem out in Texas somewhere. If cosseting is something he does. For all we know, it’s a prison camp.

But we should not be surprised. Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres warned us about this in early 2024. Musk, Thiel, and their compadres are violently opposed to the health and well-being of anyone not white. To the point that Musk took over the US government for as long as he was tolerated (and it’s interesting to know he wasn’t tolerated for long) to destroy any program that supports the health and well-being of anyone not white. I don’t think he would even argue with that. He’s pretty open about it.

It’s evident to me, at least, that debt and violence is how the oligarchy intends to keep us in line. Forever subscriptions, yanking out the rug of support on a global level, ridiculous entertainment and ridiculous advertisements. If it feels dystopian, it is dystopian. Keep us all in a state of constant wanting. Perpetual aspiration to things that will never ever be within our grasp.

Down to the periodic re-enactment of attempts on a President’s life for entertainment value. Boost the ratings. Whoever dies is just contributing to the spectacle. Is a prop. Keep the American people unsettled. In debt. Scared. Pretty sure this happened because Trump was caught sleeping in the Oval.

No to this. I won’t do this. I will buy my media instead of renting it. I will buy my car instead of leasing it. I will not contribute to the economy of everlasting rentals. I will not contribute to the perpetuation of dystopia, insofar as I can. We have limited power. I intend to exercise mine.