The Moral Decay of Debt

Debt has moral implications, and in denying this, we're choosing a rendezvous with Nemesis

Let's start with a household analogy. A married couple have four fine children, and since expenses are higher than income, they borrow money in their children's names to fund their lifestyle and investments. Once the offspring reach 18 years of age, the debt their parents borrowed is theirs to service.

The offspring didn't get a say in how much money was borrowed or how it was spent, but the debt is now theirs to service (i.e. pay the interest) for their entire lifetimes, as the debt is simply too large to pay off with conventional wages.

The economy changed, and since wages don't go as far and costs keep rising, the four offspring borrow in their own children's names to afford the basics of a middle-class life.

The parents are now comfortably retired, drawing on their investments bought with borrowed money. The two generations behind them are now debt-serfs who funded their own lifestyles by borrowing even more money. Since the kind of house their parents bought for 3-times-income is now 6-times-income, the debt required to own a house and fund what is considered the minimum middle-class entitlements is multiples of their parents' borrowing.

Is anyone willing to call this offloading of ever-expanding debt onto future generations wrong, as in morally wrong, or have we lost the vocabulary and ability to declare the offloading of debt as morally disgraceful, a line that should never have been crossed?

Debt that cannot be extinguished and that is offloaded onto future generations is a manifestation of moral decay, a decay of the moral foundations of the economy and society that is terminal.

So here we are, cheering on a big reduction in the Fed Funds Rate to encourage an expansion of debt, as more debt means more spending and that means more taxes and corporate profits. The manipulation of interest rates and the financial machinery to encourage more debt is viewed as bloodless, absolutely devoid of moral judgment: when it comes to "growth" of asset prices, spending, taxes and profits, there is no wrong, as "growth" is the only good anyone cares about.

This is the perfection of moral decay. Offloading debt onto future generations--money borrowed to prop up a self-serving status quo that focused on expediencies, not future consequences--and then telling the debt-enslaved generations, "we'll inflate away the debt, and your wages will buy less and less, but no worries, we'll just borrow more to pay the interest due"--how is this not morally repulsive?

Here is Federal debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is a better measure of consequences, for it illustrates the Federal government's ability to counter a deep recession by borrowing and spending trillions of dollars is now limited by extreme debt levels.



Those who track the history of government debt generally draw the red-line at 100% of GDP, so 120% is already deep in the danger zone. History is rather decisive: any attempt to add trillions in additional debt at these levels has zero chance of working as intended, i.e. a pain-free way to boost "growth."

Note the debt-to-GDP ratio actually declined during both the stagflationary 1970s and the 1990s Internet boom. In both eras, the economy was still largely organic, i.e. unmanipulated enough that natural forces (supply, demand, risk aversion, writedowns of bad debt, etc.) could work through excesses of speculation and debt and restore not just balance sheets but legitimacy.

The Federal Reserve no longer trusted the system's self-correcting capacity and leaped into full-blown manipulation of financial and mortgage markets in 2008-09. The debt-to-FDP ratio soared from 60% to 100% in the post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) "save" of the Federal Reserve, which inflated the money supply and pushed ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and QE (quantitative easing) to boost borrowing.

As a result, private-sector borrowing also skyrocketed. Now that households and enterprises have borrowed up to their capacity to service debt, their ability to "borrow their way to prosperity" is also constrained.

Here is total debt, public and private (TCMDO). In Q2 1975, total debt was $2.5 trillion. If this had tracked inflation, it would have reached $15 trillion by Q2 2025. ($1 in Q2 1975 is $6 in Q2 2025.) (BLS Inflation Calculator)



Let's say that debt can double the rate of inflation if it's being invested productively. That would put today's total debt at $30 trillion.

But total debt isn't close to $30 trillion; it's $104 trillion and climbing, suggesting 70+ trillion is "excess debt." As for all this borrowed money being invested productively--given "waste is growth" planned obsolescence and rampant asset appreciation / speculation, it seems obvious that most of this borrowed money was consumed by ephemeral products and services or squandered chasing asset bubbles.

Debt has implicit moral implications, and in denying this, we're choosing a rendezvous with Nemesis--a rendezvous with Destiny that will be arranged by Nemesis, not the Federal Reserve or the Treasury.

Yes, debt can be productive, but it can also be exploitive, and therein lies the moral implications. Debt can never be amoral or bloodless; its moral nature cannot be extinguished. We appear to be destined to discover this truth the hard way.


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Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


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Precarity and the Point of No Return

Or maybe it's just me, and all is well. Time will tell.

I often wonder if others feel the precarity of this era, or is it just me? It's hard to tell, as economic statistics don't measure precarity, they mostly measure averages and aggregates, all of which are glowing: GDP and profits up, unemployment low, and so on.

If precarity makes the news, it's the financial precarity experienced by many American households as costs rise and wages don't keep up, regardless of what the aggregate statistics are indicating.

This precarity is real, but it's not what's being featured. It's reflected in mirrors, not in headlines. In this mirror, we see millions of people pursuing side hustles and crowding into speculative casinos. If this isn't a reflection of desperation, it's something close to it. But this isn't news.

The precarity extends into the realms of public trust. Expertise backed by credentials--presented as evidence the public could trust the credentialed experts to serve the public interest with disinterested competence--have been eroded by self-interest. Public trust is as precarious as household budgets.

Faith in our future prospects is equally precarious. We're presented with an endless series of science-fiction fantasies brought to life--flying motorcycles, driverless taxis, household robots, energy so cheap we won't even bother metering it--but the mirror is reflecting a much different future, one of precarity, uncertainty and decay of what can't be measured like GDP or profits.

We all sense when we've reached a Point of No Return, a river like the Rubicon that should we cross it, there's no going back. There's another type of Point of No Return: the point in the journey where we realize we no longer have the resources to retrace our steps and return to the safety of what we left behind.

At this point, we can only go forward into an uncertain future, one without guarantees and one in which trust is diminishing as steadily as the water in our canteen. This is when the temptation to grasp at straws and seek scapegoats looms large, and the potential of losing our grip is a greater threat that the unknowns ahead.

There's a bad moon rising, and this makes our journey forward more precarious. We like to believe we're in control of our destiny, but the world around us has its own destiny, and we're making choices on a stage with its own gearing.



The gearing of precarity is guiding the machine, whether we're aware of it or not. I fear for the nation, as the journey ahead is faintly illuminated by a bad moon rising. I fear the dwindling sandbar between the raging currents of partisanship will disappear beneath my feet.



Or maybe it's just me, and all is well. Time will tell.


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Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


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"Upgrade Now" To Get What Was Previously Included At No Extra Charge

In this realm of extraction, exploitation, artifice and illusion, "growth" is garbage.

Tube of toothpaste: $4. Tube of toothpaste with cap: $5. You may reckon this is an exaggeration of the trend to coercing us to "upgrade now" to get what was previously included at no extra charge, but rest assured some marketing maven is reading this and thinking, hey, this is brilliant: we can make the cap leak or fall off, and then offer a Premium version with the cap they currently get for no extra charge.

We're being dimed to death by "Upgrade Now" to get what we once received at no extra charge. As I note in my new book Ultra-Processed Life, it's now impossible to parody the excesses of "upgrade now to Premium" because they're already self-parodying.

I didn't say nickel and dimed to death because inflation has already consumed the nickel. As costs soar, the nagging to "upgrade now to Premium" only intensifies.

The US Postal Service now offers Premium Tracking for a few extra dollars. When did regular tracking become so deficient that we now need Premium Tracking?

Airlines have squeezed more seats into the coach class to immiserate passengers to the point that they cave in and pay extra for an extra comfort seat which is only slightly more roomy than the standard coach seats of the 1980s.

The software you could buy once and use for years is now a subscription-only service. This is of course what Cory Doctorow has aptly called ensh*tification, the process of snaring customers which high-value offerings that are degraded once the hook has been set. Now that the sunk costs of switching are painful, the corporation squeezes more cash out of the immiserated customer.

If ensh*tification doesn't work, Corporate America doubles down with outright coercion and deception. Mr. Softee (MSFT, Microsoft) is a master of the this process. For example, the unwary customer discovers everything they've been saving hasn't been saved to their own drive; it's been saved to Mr. Softee's OneDrive, and guess what, Honored Customer, your OneDrive is now full and you need to pony up monthly cash to expand your OneDrive capacity.

As for transferring all your saved data from OneDrive to the drive you own, fuhgeddaboudit-baby, no dice.

In a similar fashion, every digital action now launches a nag to "upgrade to Premium." Do you want to schedule a bulk email to be sent later? Now that requires upgrading to Premium. The virus scan found a gazillion trackers that could be threatening everything you hold dear, but now the standard antivirus software doesn't fix that problem, you're prompted to upgrade to Premium to protect your precious digital life.

When did Corporate America veer so close to bankruptcy that it must now squeeze a few more dollars out of every customer lest it dry up and blow away? Well garsh, poor Corporate America must be barely scraping by. But if we look at corporate profits, they're at record highs, far above where they'd be if they'd only tracked inflation.



The propaganda of "free markets" promised that corporations would seek higher profits by increasing the value of products and services and reducing prices. The opposite is what's actually true: corporations are maximizing profits by reducing the durability and value of products and services and relentlessly immiserating customers to herd us into paying more for what we once received at no extra charge.

Let's call this what it actually is: the garbage time of history, a travesty of a mockery of a sham of "value," a ruthless exploitation of trapped consumers, who are already being bled dry as either debt-serfs or tax donkeys, or if particularly unlucky, both debt-serfs and tax donkeys.

In this realm of extraction, exploitation, artifice and illusion, "growth" is garbage.



The Garbage Time of History Is Global (9/5/25)


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Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


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The Garbage Time of History Is Global

The key insight of "let it rot" and "the garbage time of history" is the inauthenticity of all "reforms."

The Chinese culture has a rich trove of apt, often humorous expressions that summarize a situation with imaginative metaphors. For example, let it rot (bai lan) summarizes the realization that the present era is the garbage time of history (lishi de laji shijian), and the appropriate response is to "actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around."

The garbage time of history was "coined by essayist Hu Wenhui, that describes a period of prolonged societal decline or stagnation where a nation's system is no longer viable but hasn't collapsed, characterized by individuals being powerless and the future being set on a downward trajectory. The term is a metaphor for the final, inconsequential minutes of a sports game where the outcome is already decided, and any effort is futile."

The garbage time of history is not unique to China; the entire world is mired in the garbage time of history because we're all enmeshed in financial and globalized feedbacks and tightly bound subsystems that are the gearing of the world-system.

The gearing can't be changed, as that might disrupt those gorging at the money-trough, so cause-and-effect are limited to garbage in, garbage out: inputs are modified for show, spectacles are performed as a substitute for substance, and illusory solutions are batted around, as if the core problem is "money" rather than the gearing of the system.

The problems are far deeper than "money." A system geared for "growth at any cost" finds real advancement is limited, so a pretense of growth is favored: growth of "money," growth of gamed statistics, growth of waste, etc.

Since the gearing is fundamentally financial, everything else is for show. For example, "healthcare" in the U.S. is an extractive financial machine which operates behind a screen of providing medicine. Big Tech is an extractive financial machine operating behind a screen of search, social media and AI agents. Higher education is an extractive financial machine operating behind a screen of research, virtue-signaling and going through the motions of offering coursework and credentials.

The key insight of let it rot and the garbage time of history is the inauthenticity of all "reforms", as the "reforms" never change the gearing of the machine, they only modify the garbage being fed into the machine.

The score is Extractive Financial Machine, 103, Workers, Customers and Citizens, 17. There's four seconds left, so by all means launch the ball from 3-point land, and as spectacular as a bucket at the buzzer would be, it won't change the outcome of the garbage time of history.



The whole point of "reforms" is to leave the gearing unchanged behind a gaudy show of going through the motions of reforms that change nothing.


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My recent books:

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Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


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Entitled, Demanding--and Shunned

Since we didn't need relationships in a transactional system, we no longer have any.

To connect multiple threads into a coherent understanding, let's start with a real-life story. We're handy but some breakdowns require outside assistance. The fridge failed (GE brand, less than two years old) and it turned out to be difficult to find a repair tech. One had retired, others were swamped, one didn't return multiple calls, another had left the trade for another trade, and GE's own service only covers repairs under warranty (i.e. one year).

One of my wife's cousins had spoken highly of an experienced repair guy, and in leaving the gent a message my wife mentioned her cousin as the source of the recommendation. He had no business listing online; everything was word of mouth.

The gent eventually returned her call, asked for the model/make information, and agreed to swing by to diagnose the problem.

During their conversation the gent mentioned his 40+ years in the appliance / repair business, and that he only does work for people he knows. He no longer responds to strangers recommended by people he knows, as he's had bad experiences with newcomers and will have nothing to do with them. He only returned our call because we were family members of someone he knows.

His list of previous customers numbers in the hundreds, and these trustworthy, respectful people keep him as busy as he wants.

My shorthand for his bad experiences with strangers: they're entitled, demanding, discourteous, and find excuses not to pay him. His response is to shun those customers he doesn't already know, or in our case, family members of people he does know. (He knew two of my wife's cousins.)

Now let's connect a few more threads. Ours is an advocacy system. You want something, you have to advocate for it, often persistently, as "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Customer service had degraded to the point where the system seeks to reduce costs by grinding down customers so they give up.

Advocacy merges easily into threats. After a trip in Asia, I knew I was on a US-flagged airline when a passenger who'd been accidentally jostled by another passenger snapped, "I'll sue you!" (This is one of those "only in America" things: "I'll sue you!")

The appliance tech mentioned that when a stranger outright refused to pay him and he said he would remove the part he'd just installed, the customer threatened to "call the police."

Threats are tactics, of course, to bulldoze your opponent, but they can also be the emotional response of those who grasp their powerlessness in the system.

Americans confuse rights, entitlements and advocacy. Our rights are rather limited, and are defined by an enormous body of legal rulings. Our entitlements--for example, to receive medical care under the Medicare or Medicaid programs--are often taken as rights, but they're not the same: we may be entitled to care but that isn't a guarantee we'll receive the care, as that depends on the local availability of enterprises who accept Medicare / Medicaid patients.

Providers can bail out of these programs, and those mandated to provide coverage (emergency rooms for example) can close down.

Entitlement leads to demands presented as advocacy which morphs into "it's my right." Well, actually, it's rarely our "right," beyond advocating our position via free speech, filing complaints with regulatory authorities or legal proceedings.

Now let's connect the final set of threads: the difference between transactions and relationships, systems that are based on transactions and systems that are based on relationships--not just immediate family and friends, but extended family ties and reciprocal-help relationships that are the core of community--a much used and abused term for what is largely a hollow slogan.

Ours is a transactional system: everything you need or want is for sale via a financial transaction. nobody needs a relationship to buy whatever they want; they just need money or credit. We approach a complete stranger who is employed by Corporate America or the government, and complete a financial transaction.

In a transactional system, we don't do anything for anyone unless we're paid. OK, help a stranger with a flat tire maybe, but develop reciprocal-aid ties with neighbors and others? We don't have time for those kinds of "investments" that "don't pay off."

Consider the difference between an appliance repair conducted as a transaction and one based on relationships. If the appliance is under warranty, the issuer of the warranty is obligated to arrange a repair by the contractual stipulations of the warranty. ("Some conditions apply," of course, meaning there may be exclusions, limits of liability, etc. Sorry about that, you should have read the fine print.)

The customer and the repair tech are strangers. The transaction is arranged by strangers in a corporate office. This transaction is lauded in the abstract as proof of the "trustworthiness" of the system.

A transactional system works marvelously until it breaks down. For example, the hospital closes due to financial losses, and so the ER is closed, too. We can demand our right to medical care but it's no longer available in our area. Or the warranty repair service is no longer available in our area, sorry.

The fragility of these transactional systems is hidden until they break down. And when they degrade and break down, then we're left with systems based on relationships--systems which have largely vanished in a highly mobile, rootless culture that's distilled everything down to "trustworthy" transactions.

If everyone is constantly moving, there is no way anyone can know members of your extended family because they're scattered thousands of miles apart.

In a transaction-based culture, relationships have little value, so they're depreciated. Why bother maintaining or forming relationships when you can get everything you want or need by staring at a screen?

Until all those hyper-optimized transactional systems start breaking down. Then the value of relationships is suddenly revalued--but few have any reciprocal-aid relationships with practical value. Networking is a superficial, shallow simulacrum of actual relationships, and that's all we have left.

Sure, I'll help you, but only if I personally know someone in your family. This is trust on a different level than the transactional trust of Corporate America or government agencies.

Transactions work great until hyper-optimized transactional systems cease to be hyper-profitable. Then we discover how fragile these systems are to disruption.

Since we didn't need relationships in a transactional system, we no longer have any. Demanding our rights and what we're entitled to isn't going to bring overly complex systems back; once they're gone, they're gone, and we'll be dependent on relationships, which are fundamentally reciprocal in nature.

In other words, you know--and helped--one of my family members, I'll help you. If you didn't, well I'm sorry, I'm busy.

Entitled, Demanding--and Shunned. That's the end-game of depending on transactions as a replacement for all the relationships that have gone by the wayside in a culture that reckons everything boils down to a series of bloodless transactions.

This is the transactional gearing we're caught up in...



...and it maps collapse rather closely.






Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
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The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

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