FIRE is making "The Fed" nervous... Oh booo-hooo!

[Money Badger]

Makes me wonder how much debt the NYTimes reporter is in and how much the financial industry bankrolls the media:   
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/economy/millennials-retirement.html

Throwing down the gauntlet to live like badasses and make the Fed irrelevant in our lives...   One can read many messages into this article depending upon which side of the debt fence one is on.   But the implied message to me is "Everyone needs to buy too much stuff with credit to be in debt so the Fed reserve can manipulate your life more easily through interest rates and printing money."   Barf.

[talltexan]

Even if you're out of debt and simply own a business or investments or real estate, interest rates still affect you.

[Money Badger]

True that businesses use debt to buy capital assets they depreciate and pay down.   And yes, the stock market risk assets become less desirable as interest rates go up.   And many FIRE individuals are landlords who may have mortgages on their rentals.   So agree there can be an indirect impact.   

But it's gaslighting people to convince them they should be in long-term debt so the Fed can save them by manipulating their debt servicing whenever the economy has a downturn.    And further implying that people who FIRE are going to harm those who remain so indentured is such a disservice to those who read it.   I envision a writer who was given a "Fed article" assignment by their editor to generate click revenues and they just regurgitated a bankers comments to publish this garbage.

[BicycleB]

The more independent, unstressed actors with cash and productive skills there are in the economy, the more fundamentally resilient it will be. FIRE people add strength to the system, reducing the efforts that the Fed needs to make in the first place.

[SwordGuy]

The more independent, unstressed actors with cash and productive skills there are in the economy, the more fundamentally resilient it will be. FIRE people add strength to the system, reducing the efforts that the Fed needs to make in the first place.

Agree completely!

[Money Badger]

Careful now @BicycleB and @SwordGuy...    You're not accepting the media programming to stay in debt and that might make their spendy pants advertisers cranky!   ;-)

[happyuk]

Plenty of sizeable debt and fear, especially corona-based, that's what government likes.  Poor, psychologically broken people are easier to push around.  You are a child of God, not a snivelling beggar, never forget this.  Government is an insatiable beast, the more you give it the more it wants.

[talltexan]

Agreed that this is the kind of high-volatility moment that makes getting out of debt seem like a great thing.

Many people who are in debt right now are suddenly seeing it much harder to make progress, though, as income is being reduced for them.