I woke up today in the morning but I was down because of debt fears. Now you may ask me why should I be down because of debt fears ? I have no debt. I am a debt free man. But when you see markets down because of debt fear, a human being can be down too because of debt fears. May be I was down because the world in general has too much debt. I woke up and my mind kept thinking why do we have so much debt in the world. There was a time when living on debt was considered a moral sin. But not anymore, debt is good. Debt is fun. Debt is cool. Take debt, lever yourself. Juice up your return in the stock market, or just live in a huge house on debt, its alright. Its no sin anymore. Debt is the ultimate panacea of today's world. Debt makes the world go round and round. We read about debt markets. We pay credit card debt. We pay home mortgage debt. Debt markets go up and down. I guess today was my turn to go down, even when I woke up, debt markets put me down.
Then I realized why was I down. Oh now I remembered, my portfolio was down 25000 dollars in last two weeks, all because of a small country in southern Europe, Greece. They produced only 2.3 % of US GDP, but they suddenly had become too important. Porno people were making fun of Greece and their unholy love for Greek sex. But that was no consolation to me, I was down. My portfolio was down. All because of this little country somewhere in Europe.
More I tried to understand, more I became confused. Debt was killing me, even though I had no debt. But the world I lived in was awash in debt. As if sub-prime, alt-a, prime debt was not enough, now even sovereign debt had come to haunt me. I started to curse. Why can't people live with no debt. Why should government have to manipulate interest rates. Shouldn't interest rates be determined by free markets. Shouldn't savers of the world be paid for their hard work and frugal ways ?
I started to get depressed. All the things about debt that my culture had taught me, were no longer relevant in the culture I lived in. Here debt was no sin. Debt was good. Short of saying that debt could get you enlightenment, every other thing was possible with debt. You could even demand a legal right to live off debt and riot like the Greeks last week did when that right was not given to you. This was a crazy world. My mind was spinning with confusion and chaos around me. I switched off the TV channel which promised to make me fast money and went to sleep again.
