Jon Baker wrote:

> 2008/10/2 Gerhard Fiedler:
>> I think that's it. If all the (public and private) debt in the US had
>> been taken out for things like a college education or similar "values",
>> I think the economy would be in better shape :)
> 
> That's an interesting thought, but a lender can't reposses a college
> education nor anything else of such an intangible nature. 

My point was about something else. In this case, the total loan sum would
be much lower, because people don't tend to spend a lot on really useful
stuff. And if they do, they have something that while it can't be
repossessed adds more value than the more volatile speculative assets or
simple borrowing for spending.

The point was that there would be value for the debt (whether good debt or
not, whether that can be repossessed or not), other than now, where there
is just a big bubble of accounting numbers without any value backing them.
Repossessing doesn't help if the value isn't there...

Gerhard

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