Debt is an effect of wealth, not desperation. That’s true for individuals and corporations, but also governments. The power of compounding vivifies this truth, and explains why Apple has lots of debt but the corner store doesn’t, and the U.S. has tens of trillions of debt, but Haiti next to nothing.
The Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria and the Wall Street Journal’s Joseph Sternberg could probably be convinced otherwise, but for now they write as though the above isn’t true. Sternberg contends “Americans have discovered we can use our reserve-currency status to feed our consumption addiction,” while Zakaria writes that “we benefit enormously from what has been described as the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of having the world’s reserve currency.’” They’re focused on effects, not causes. There’s no such thing as “exorbitant privilege” or “consumption addiction,” there's just production.
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