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So, forgive the ingenuity, what prevents me from taking that 1000 loan, park it in my bank account, and repay the 990 due in a year (earning 10 in the process)?


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.... so you can... never borrow more than you already have? that seems like the exact opposite of a loan. Why not just keep the $1000 yourself and spend $800 of it? If you can't pay yourself back, then you're only out $800 instead of the $1000 in your example.

The bank only has 100k though. They can’t loan out 1m because they don’t have 1m to give out.

If you can't pay back a 50,000 or 100,000 loan in 10 years, you're doing something wrong.

I don’t think so.

All loans have terms and minimum payments. So if you borrow $1000 over a year at -1% you still have to make $990 in payments, or you will default.


If you loan me 10k, and then later forgive the loan, you are still 10k in the hole. I spent the 10k on goods and services, and you have 10k less that you can spend.

Alternatively, can I borrow $10k from you?


In that case can I borrow $100k?

I'm positive I could get a bank to stop promising to loan me money. :)

Yeah, if I could borrow $250k+ at the start of my career knowing that I'll never have to repay a penny of it, and the only consequence is that I couldn't get a mortgage in the first two years out of university...

...why wouldn't I just borrow every cent I can without even intending to pay it back?


If you have the ability to borrow $1M, I'd argue you're already there. I know people who can't open a fucking checking account.

If I take a $100k loan, my wealth doesn't go up $100k.

Except the loan money will go straight to Amazon, and you are now unable to repay the loan to the bank

Its a loan against yourself

If you paid your loans off, you don't lose anything by someone else getting $10,000. That is, indeed, incontrovertible. Imagine I have an apple and you have an apple. If I get another apple, that doesn't mean you now have zero.

So a loan you can never repay?

So the idea is the bank gave you a loan then forgave it, so it’s now income? That’s a big leap in logic and sounds evil considering you never consider that when getting a loan, you only expect the internet to accrue.

If you get a loan, you are not paying $0.

Uhm... no.

I borrow $1000 and promise to pay back $1050. Lender now has a $1050 IOU which he will likely put into circulation (borrow against it, trade it etc.). Monetary supply just increased by $50.


Presumably you'd have to pay back more than you get in the loan, right? Wouldn't your liability increase by more than a million dollars?

Someone with no/low income will take eons to repay $1.685.000, even if made in installments. I doubt it would even be a serious option unless you were wealthy.
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