Schulden an sich, sind nie ein Problem.
Warum kriseln dann die “Schuldenländer” wirklich?
Warum kriseln dann die “Schuldenländer” wirklich?
Let's take a very simple approach to understanding this.
Problems arise when the payments arising from the liabilities can no longer be made and, above all, when the loans are not backed by valuable collateral. This is also referred to as good debt and bad debt.
Good debt can be understood as investment loans that lead to a good return on investment. For example, you may buy a property cheaply that can be rented out well and brings you more income than you need to service the debt, in which case you make a profit on your debt. You could have financed a start-up company (Apple, Google, etc.) and then receive a good return.
Bad debts are simple loans that bring you no return but only obligations.
For example, you finance your vacation. After three weeks, your vacation is over, but you still owe money on your loan. If you have also fallen ill during this vacation, the problem is compounded because now you may not be able to work and pay the debt and have to take out more loans to survive. And you haven't bought anything with the loan that you could sell to pay off the debt.
So what about the national debt?
What is the real problem there? Or the problems?
The idea of investing well and creating healthy growth, jobs and prosperity has become somewhat perverted. The famous gold backing of the currency was based on the idea of only taking on debt to the value of gold so that the debt could always be repaid from assets. This limits the amount of debt that can be taken on, the scope for investment and the rate of growth.
A different criterion was agreed as a reference value. The Maastricht Treaty stipulates that new debt should depend on gross national product. Similar to a bank saying, I will only give you another loan if your income increases, the new debt of countries should depend on the growth of gross national product.
This creates several problems. Firstly, there is no security for the loan. This is because the new debt remains, while the gross national product of a year is quickly history. This is similar to the employee who has received a vacation loan today on the basis of his salary, but without a salary has no security to replace the loan.
With the gross national product, we only have a quantity figure but unfortunately no quality figure. That's why I sometimes refer to it as the gross national product in connection with debt. Because every smoker's leg lost, every car accident, many disputes, etc. increase the gross national product. In simple terms, you can say that every bill you write increases the gross national product against which you can go into debt.
So things that pose problems for the future allow us to take on debt or often force us to do so, and we end up going round in circles.
Since we still have a banking system that has the ability to issue loans of up to around 60 euros for every euro deposited, the problem arose that more loans were being offered than there were good investment opportunities. So artificial real estate booms and dangerous derivatives were created to keep the game going. A huge amount of bad debt was inflated.
So the problem is not debt per se, but the many nonsensical bad debts.
In order not to let the many (bank) patients in intensive care die, the systemically important patients were kept alive with further credit infusions. But this required bad debt again!
Now it is always easy to tell the patient in the intensive care unit what they should have avoided. In order to save him, you sometimes have to use treatments that ideally would not have been necessary.
But if healthy people don't learn, we'll all end up in intensive care. At some point, the calculation will no longer work out.
Today, the problem is not actually the amount of debt. It's how we deal with our health. Because there is so much good growth potential in the world that we could easily repay today's debts tomorrow. The billions should not scare us, because there are even greater opportunities in the air.
We don't actually have a financial crisis, but a crisis of values.
Wir haben es in den USA gesehen, wie aus parteipolitischen Gründen, der Patient auf der Intensivstation nicht die Behandlung bekommt, die er bräuchte. Wenn dieser “Ärztestreit” wichtiger wird als die Heilung des Patienten, dann entsteht erst der wirkliche Notfall.
Hopefully those responsible in politics, but also everyone in their private lives, will recognize what behaviour is necessary (to turn the tide).
Finance is never the real problem, people are. Capitalism is not the problem, at least not alone, but the way people use it.
Debt is not the real problem, but people who create bad debt with unhealthy intentions and then can't get out of the drama.
As the saying goes:
“Wir kaufen von Geld, das wir nicht haben, Dinge die wir nicht brauchen, um Leute zu beeindrucken, die wir nicht einmal mögen.”
A knife, money and debt are initially neutral.
People decide whether to save or kill lives.
So let's not be alarmed if the debts are high.
Debt is not the real problem.
A beautiful future!
Wolfgang Sonnenburg
winning for life
Sign up for the newsletter at www.win-win.ag
_________________
