Something I have claimed for decades now is that the whole problem is a credit based economy. It is all an illusion and not real. And the only way to fix this is to crash it and start over with real bricks and mortar. The best thing that could happen in the long term is to have a serious depression and crash it. The credit based economy and banking needs to end or it will never get fixed. I’m all in for a total crash, it will make money REAL again.
The issue with eliminating credit is that you remove the mechanism for economic progress—in other words, no growth.
Without lending, there’s no multiplier effect—just a fixed supply of money slowly changing hands. Credit allows capital to flow to its most productive use, driving growth, innovation, and rising living standards.
As a retired investment banker, I’ve seen firsthand how well the credit system works when it’s operating properly. Yes, there are occasional blowups—like the subprime mortgage crisis—but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
Credit isn’t the problem; the misuse of it is. The goal shouldn’t be to burn the system down, but to manage it responsibly.
Without a functioning credit system, we’d be stuck in a stagnant, low-opportunity economy.
Think of lending as renting capital. Imagine a farmer with expensive equipment that sits idle for most of the year. Instead of letting it rust, he rents it out to another farmer who puts it to good use and pays for the privilege.
That’s what credit markets do. When people or institutions have excess capital—savings they don’t need right now—they don’t just let it sit idle. They “rent” it out through loans or bonds. The borrower uses it to build, expand, or invest, and pays interest—just like rent.
This system keeps money productive rather than stagnant. It connects savers with builders, and both sides benefit. That’s the real engine of economic growth—not just consumption, but smart allocation of resources through credit.