I may have used the wrong phrasing for generational - I meant it much less in terms of inheritance, and more in terms of &quot;doing things now that mean I have food on the table forty years from now.&quot; Like, if you want to do things now so that someone staffs your nursing home when you&#x27;re old, the net effect is that you&#x27;re trading real goods and services for &quot;I will do valuable things for society later, such as staffing a nursing home.&quot;<p>If you aren&#x27;t trading current goods for future promises of them, then you&#x27;re doing things like building machines and roads that deprecate and require maintenance, or growing crops that rot, or otherwise making stuff that won&#x27;t be very helpful when you&#x27;re older.<p>And since a lot of people want to be taken care of when they&#x27;re older, and they&#x27;re making tons of things that people today want, there&#x27;s absolutely zero surprise that they&#x27;re extending shitloads of credit (especially to young people, and college&#x2F;housing in particular).