If this worked, why didn't more banks just burn down?
this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
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Because for most people, most of the time, mortgages are a good deal
This was true once, but not for a long time now. And that's generally true across the board, at least in US, Canada, and most of Europe.
doubt
Proof: people keep getting mortgages
Counterpoint: The alternative is rent trap or homelessness
Jerking off a homeless dude for free is a good deal when he has a gun in your neck.
Hahahahaha
What a literally insane take
An even better deal is having a house and no mortgage
Mandatory Note: Whether he actually intentionally destroyed mortgages is disputed, it may be true, or it may just be popular legend of the period.
Fair enough.
In recent times, I heard a joke that loosely goes something like this..
Back in the day, I used to be able to go to the store with $20 and get 2 steaks, 3 loaves of bread, a sack of potatoes and a tub of butter.
Not today though, too many fucking cameras!
😂🤣
Heh, I have family members who were raised in the 70s and 80s who we tell stories about, things like doing a week's groceries by shoplifting. Just really brazen stuff.
My late father had a little more class than that though. He would go behind the local Piggly Wiggly right after they tossed out food that was just past official expiration date, and he'd basically go dumpster diving.
He didn't do this willy nilly either, he was always observant on what foods he found that were still viable and edible. It's amazing yet very disappointing how much perfectly good food goes to waste every single day when we have so many people in the world starving.. ☹️
He didn’t do this willy nilly either, he was always observant on what foods he found that were still viable and edible. It’s amazing yet very disappointing how much perfectly good food goes to waste every single day when we have so many people in the world starving.. ☹️
Yeah. For some ~200 years now, the issue (and it is a legitimate issue, though certainly one also exacerbated by human greed) has been figuring out a system of distribution rather than production.
Production we have down pat. Distribution seems to be trickier...
That being said, expiration dates are a "Covering our asses" measure to prevent cheap-ass corporations (and local stores, tbf) from selling food that could get people legitimately sick just in order to save a few bucks on their profit margins.
No. I hear this argument about the distribution problem all the time. Logistics and distribution is fucking solved. This argument completely ignores the real issue of people not being able to afford to buy food. Food stamps was a pretty good system (talking about the us, no idea about elsewhere) and it should have been expanded not cancelled.
This argument completely ignores the real issue of people not being able to afford to buy food.
That's part of the core issue of distribution. Purchasing food is reliant on the machinations of a market economy. Market economies operate by equal exchange; those who lack units of value (ie money) must be given units of value to exchange for food. The decision thus must be made how to give those units of value and to whom. The 'simplest' option is a UBI - universal basic income (ie give everyone enough money to live on at a basic level).
However, the difficulty of securely (against both fraud and theft) and universally distributing money in an age before direct deposit consumer banking (as recently as the 70s it was still not standard, and as late as the 2000s I personally knew working people without bank accounts entirely) made any such experiment difficult and costly to attempt to implement - for which reason polities simply... did not. In addition to reasoning about budget concerns and 'motivation to work' (the latter of which has been strongly disputed by the evidence provided in modern small-scale UBI projects, which suggest little change in work patterns of recipients).
At present, political capital (and lack of popular consensus) are probably more the bottleneck preventing UBI than economic issues. But it wasn't that long ago that the very real bureaucratic challenges of a pre-computerized society would have rendered it potentially entirely unfeasible.
Bank robber who also enjoys some casual pyromania: "Weee!"
Farmers: "He's a hero!"
Bank Robber: "Yup... Totally what I was going for..."
Hey Anonymous...
It's a crime to steal money
To the banking industry, it would be an unforgivable crime that would require the worst punishment if you intentionally erased another man's debt.
Relevant song by Woody Guthrie: Pretty Boy Floyd
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw.
Drive a family from their home.
