Let's focus on just a few things that don't make an ounce of financial sense by any objective measure. These are clear indications of a completely unsustainable financial game that can only go on for so long as a government-rigged farce before it collapses like a house of cards.
This isn't intended to be a comprehensive list. It's just a few that are obvious even to an untrained ignoramus like me:
1. Pension systems. These may have made sense at one point, but they're a disaster waiting to happen when you couple early retirement ages with extended life expectancies. Much of the U.S. industrial base was decimated by this nonsense. I recall one documentary on the history of Bethlehem Steel where it was pointed out that the company's union workers were eligible for a full pension after 30 years of service. When the company was in its death spiral, the narrative included stories of "victims" among the workers who had worked for the company since they were 18 and were no longer going to able to retire with a full pension at the age of 48. In modern times, I'll bet most people with defined benefit pensions are retired for more years than they actually work. That kind of idiocy can't be fixed. It can only be destroyed -- either over time through attrition, or immediately through a rapid collapse (like the GM fiasco of 2008-09).
2. "Fixed-rate" mortgages. I use quotation marks here because there's no such thing as a fixed-rate residential mortgage in the U.S. today. Sure -- you can sign a mortgage agreement that establishes an amortization schedule at a fixed interest rate for 15, 20, or even 30 years. But this rate is only "fixed" for the borrower, not the lender. If rates go down, the borrower can always refinance without paying a prepayment penalty to the original lender. But if rates go up, the lender is basically screwed ... kind of like the lender on my own mortgage, who is getting less than 3.25% for the next 25+ years at a time when inflation is being reported at 8%-9% and is probably much higher. How long can that go on?
3. Related to the previous point ... Artificially low interest rates. Inflation is being reported at 8%-9% these days. And yet someone is still buying U.S. Treasury debt at interest rates of 1.8% (1-year), 2.5% (2-year), and under 3% (30-year). Someone is getting their asses taken for a ride here. I'm not exactly sure who it is.
The fly in the ointment is that what the Davos arcadians envision in a "reset" and what you proscribe are miles away, and the former's probably require you to die soon and the wealth of your family confiscated, the survivors, if any, condemned to slavery.
Good post.
Obviously none of that is sustainable—the collapse is certain.
It is like a rigged poker game—if you don’t know who the mark is at the table, it is you!
“But if rates go up, the lender is basically screwed .”
Banks use different hedging techniques to mitigate interest rate risk on mortgages.
This is a good explanation of how its done:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-banks-hedge-interest-rate-risk?share=1