The “miracle” of compounding interest. This is possibly the most fundamental contradiction in modern capitalism. Debt grows exponentially while income does not. Therefore, how are people supposed to pay off their debts? Modern economists simply ignore this, and grifter financial advisors like Caleb Hammer & Dave Ramsey individualize the debt problem by claiming it’s the result of personal lifestyle decisions. In reality, the problem is entirely structural. The richest people in our society make money by loaning money at interest. Then they use the money they receive in loan payments to issue even more loans. This steadily grows the debt burden which acts as economic overhead draining societal wealth and ensuring that it isn’t invested in anything productive. What’s accumulated is not real tangible capital, as occurred during the Industrial Revolution, but fictitious capital in the form of paper or digital money. A more backwards and parasitic economy than this could scarcely be imagined.