via #JatinModi on #LinkedIn
Marriage, home, children: life's milestones became the ultimate luxury portfolio.
In 1397, Giovanni de' Medici opened a small bank near Florence's Ponte Vecchio. Where others seized property on default, he offered flexible terms and political discretion. 'We're here to help Florence prosper.'
Need materials for your workshop? The Medici provides. Short on rent? They'll cover it. Within a decade, half of Florence owed them money.
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First, the #guild leaders borrowed for expansion. Then artisans for materials. Finally, workers for survival. The woodcarver or silk merchant who once led his guild now worked sixteen-hour days servicing interest.
'Debtors don't revolt,' Cosimo de' Medici told his son. 'They're too busy calculating interest.'
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By 1434, without raising an army, the Medici controlled #Florence more completely than any duke. When rivals accused Cosimo of tyranny, he laughed: 'Why would I need a crown? I hold everyone's mortgage.'
Today's system has extended the formula.
In 1960, over half of 30-year-olds were married homeowners. Today it's 13%. A 75% collapse in achieving what was once ordinary.
Life's milestones became financial products.
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Marriage: merger requiring due diligence and term sheets.
Home: leveraged asset requiring perfect timing.
Children: cost centers with negative ROI.
The words themselves are the confession: we learned to speak about ourselves in the language of our own depreciation.
The Medici discovered that armies control bodies, but #debt controls minds.
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Modern markets discovered something darker: you don't even need traditional debt. Just price stability itself beyond reach. Embed the chains in housing prices, childcare costs, health insurance deductibles.
Make precarity the baseline. Make #security the #luxury good.
The Medici principle was that โthe poor should neither freeze nor starve, but they should always fear they might.โ
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Modern #markets went further. They ensured you'd never quite afford to be fully human: always one payment away from losing what little stability you'd rented.
The system begins consuming itself: asset holders extracting from a shrinking base of consumers who can no longer afford to reproduce.
When a species accepts that its own continuation is economically irrational, what happens next?
We're about to find out.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jatinmodi_marriage-home-children-lifes-milestones-activity-7360316536747651072-wMhD (6/6)
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