Paul Rosenberg – I’ve advised people to get and stay out of debt for a long time, but even so, I didn’t fully understand the affects of debt until the Covid time. As the mayhem spread, I struggled to understand the level of compliance with what would have been, at any other time, criminal medical advice.
Certainly compliance was driven by massive applications of fear. And, certainly, it was accompanied by exceptional levels of guilt, as in “You’ll be responsible for killing Grandma!” Still, there was more to it, and that extra piece, I soon enough realized, was debt.
If I Had An Economist…
If I had an economist on my payroll, I’d assign them to a very simple task: Go find the relevant data, then correlate levels of debt and levels of compliance. I’d bet large that the correlation would be statistically significant.
Consider the typical police officer: He or she is on the job for benefits and steady paychecks: large American cities aren’t going to stop writing paychecks any time soon, nor will the various police unions let go of the benefit packages that justify them. This exemplary cop, like nearly all police officers, is deeply in debt. They have a mortgage and quite possibly a home-equity loan or line of credit. They also have a car loan or two, and credit cards beyond that. There may also be student loans.
So, this typical law enforcer cannot leave their job without facing financial ruin… financial ruin plus a complete loss of place and standing. Such a loss, to them, would be almost an existential crisis. And so, when orders come down from the high-and-mighties, demanding that they comply with a medical regime, the choice they face is between compliance and complete ruin.
And consider the average doctor: Although they make more money than the police officer, they also have a larger home loan, larger car loans, and very definitely larger student loans.
More than that, the independence of physicians was destroyed by Obamacare. And so, the doctors of America were in no better shape than the police officers of America: they could either comply or be ruined. (The situation in other places wasn’t generally much better.)
The same, of course, goes for nurses, teachers, and a hundred other types. Nearly everyone in the West, over the past couple of decades, has been stampeded into massive levels of debt. It’s been the only way to keep up a certain level of lifestyle. And, of course, it has worked: If you’ve found respectable employment with anything big – corporations, institutions or government – you’ve been able to roll over your debt indefinitely.
And so, when everyone associated with large employers was ordered (seemingly in concert) to take a highly questionable “vaccine,” the majority agonized for a while, and then they complied.
After Compliance
None of this is to say that the people who complied are stupid, weak, or anything of the sort: They were merely under enormous pressure, during a deeply confused moment. In that situation, they had no choice but to weigh the risks as best they could, then make the choice that seemed to offer the least pain. And so they did.
Now it’s clear that the fear was massively overplayed, that the “vaccines” didn’t stop anyone from getting the disease, and that there have been both health and financial repercussions. But it wasn’t so clear at the time.
During the mayhem, the people who complied under pressure generally fought those who didn’t, at least if they were vocal about it. After all, they were directly challenging their dignity. Now, however, time has passed and only die-hards (those who profited from the Covid time) are still hammering away with guilt and fear. The doctors and police officers, et al, are sorting things out. By ones and twos they’re admitting that things went too far.
What I hope is that these people will recognize the role that debt played in their choices. Debt was a sword hanging over their heads, and it distorted their decision process.
Out And Away
If we want practical freedom, we need to be free from the influence of debt. The people controlling all that debt have far more power over us than we thought.
As it turns out, the old admonitions to avoid debt weren’t wrong. Debt can undermine our choices and subvert our character. It’s to be used sparingly and carefully at best.
SF Source Freeman’s Perspective Jul 2024
May I ask a simple question? How can anyone buy a home without taking on debt? Yes, debt tends to entrap people, but is debt the problem, or is the problem really big government? And, isn’t the real problem government debt that is bankrupting America?
In my opinion the public sees the government spending like drunken sailors and figures, “What’s wrong with spending like the government spends?”
Our leaders are setting a very bad example for us. The left wing politicians have basically taken on ever increasing levels of debt to pay for deficit spending. They are aided and abetted by RINO republicans. And there you have the basic reason that President Trump is not liked by both sides of the isle. And, that is why he is loved by a large percentage of the American public.
So, while I agree you about the debt trap, I think COVID helped us to see the real problem. We elected the wrong people with the wrong attitude about leadership. Fiscal responsibility is the key. There is good debt and bad debt. A mortgage is good debt because it builds wealth over time. Using a credit card to buy things you do not really need is bad debt, especially if you cannot pay off the balance when the monthly bill arrives.
The same is true for our government. If we merely paid for the things our Constitution says the government must pay for, we would have a surplus every year. Instead, we have taken on huge debt to pay for our socialism. That is the real problem.