Financialisation is taking over. It actually doesn’t achieve anything, except for shifting money from A to B. It is a trickery that nobody involved should be proud of.
Debt – we don’t even question it – if you can buy a home or car for cash, you are some kind of freak. If you don’t own a credit card, ditto.
When we have a financial crisis, or a pandemic, the least resilient businesses will fail. This sounds like survival of the fittest, and it is, but the game is rigged.
The barrier to entry for any business is capital. You can’t just choose to start a casino or airline, a restaurant or a roller blade hire operation. You either need cash (already rich, can take risks), or a loan (when circumstances beyond your control go sideways, you can easily fail).
In a pandemic, any business without debt can simply mothball, put things on hold. The only remaining factors are the survival of the owner (who might depend on the profits) and the employees and the suppliers. But in many countries, the government looked after those, to some degree. Debts, far less so.
(OK, there are ongoing utilities, rates, stale stock… but the killer is debt)
Debts don’t stop. They are not a partner in your business. They are are a leach.
Debts don’t stop, with the exception of debt jubilees when creditors literally thought the world would end (or some other confabulation) and figured their deeds would be judged.
We have two ways of fixing this:
Trigger-based debt pauses. When X, Y and Z happen, nobody has to pay interest or repayments on debts, until things come right again. If your business is based on profiting from debt – no sympathy!
Ban lending. It can’t happen overnight, too much change. But anything can be phased out. Hey people! No more debt 50 years from now, start adjusting! Fun!
Fundamental change cannot happen in big moves, well, not easily. This needs to be fixed subtly. Tax works well… Place an extra tax on interest and rent earned. Because it is “unearned”, no finger lifted.
Ha! Your business is rent and interest, you must pay a lot of tax!