Financial Slavery

Is debt just financial slavery? Modern Slavery? Lets take a look.

You live carelessly through your high school years, eating on your parents dime, living with them with no care in the world. You go through school learning about triangles and how to find their area, how to type on a computer, how to read a book. Then it hits you. Life. Or should I say debt?

You turn 18, are out of school. Some of us quickly join the workforce, some go off to learn about rectangles and politics. I chose workforce. I thought I started well. No debt, no worries, I had a car my parents had given me, and I had a decent job for my experience and age. I moved out and found myself an affordable apartment and moved in with my then girlfriend. Every thing is wonderful. Everyone wants to extend you credit so you can buy things you really can't afford. But no one mentions that, shh, lets keep that part quiet. At this point life is still going smooth.

Then things start happening. Cars don't run forever, and they aren't always cheap to fix. $2,000 engine work? Go for it, I have this plastic that will pay for it. Couple more nickles and dimes and you start thinking. This car is getting expensive. So you go and look at new cars, and what do you know, you are young! The bank will let you have whatever you want! So now you have a new (to you) car. Lets forget you are still paying for the repairs on your old car. You can afford it still.

You move on to a new job, new city, new place. This time you get a house. Why pay someone else for housing when you can put money towards something that is yours? After all, that house payment is cheaper than an apartment. By now the banks love you. You can have what ever you want. You always pay on time. Oops. Roof is leaking. Its ok, there is still plastic.

But there's the trick. The slope is getting slippery. You are falling now. Somewhere something didn't add up right. Damn that geometry. I don't need to know the circumference of a circle, I need to know how to dissect these bills I am getting. I need to understand these contracts I signed. I need to know where I went wrong. You see it all the time, swipe here, cha-ching, done. You never saw the behind the scenes. You never knew that missing a payment by 1 day would kick you up to 25% interest. But that's ok. The people writing the contract knew that. They hoped for this moment. You are now enslaved.

Your employer likes it too. You won't leave. You need the paycheck. You are enslaved.

This is financial slavery.

Does the blame lie somewhere else? No, it does not. Does that help the situation? No. So what would?

Would it be hard for classes to cover life topics? No. Would it be hard to teach kids how a bank account works? How interest is compounded? How the banking industry works? Some of these could be entire High School classes that would benefit so many kids.

Why don't we teach kids how this works? It makes so much sense. I know, the parents should be doing it. The reality is most do not. Would it not help world economies to teach kids how they work? So when they get into the world they don't make the same mistakes? So they can be free, live a life that emboldens them, and that they enjoy? So they don't get trapped?

So many people in this world are trapped. They work jobs they don't like, so they can pay bills they wish they didn't accumulate. I know I am one. I wasn't a dumb kid. I didn't mean to be careless. I just didn't understand the consequences. I didn't understand that I would be paying on a car beyond its useful life, scrapping money up to keep it running. A bright side is I could be a mechanic if I needed to be. I could be a handyman. I could probably get by in construction ok.

So what is the solution? How do we teach those that are young now not to make the mistakes we did? Do we overhaul the education system so it is more practical? I believe that is the route to go. Down the road you get the benefit of those people not needing assistance and less cost for those programs. You give people the tool set they need to get through life. Sure some are still going to mess up. That is inevitable. But you WILL get through to others. They WILL understand how to manage their lives. They WILL help the economy. You WILL give them financial freedom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from slavery.