Businesses are already massively leveraged, which is a fancy way of saying "heavily in debt."

For 18 years, we have had near-zero interest rates. This has resulted in huge amounts of corporate debt, much of which has been paid with additional loans.

The real estate market is hugely overleveraged and has already begun to crack. New construction is slowing down. Some sites have stopped construction. Contractors have already sounded the alarm of defaults on some job sites. Guess what? These are backed by banks too, and being propped up by credit. What happens when the banks don't have credit to give?

Sure, that sounds lovely. But when they default, the banks suddenly have billions in liabilities they can't hide anymore. They stop getting paid. They have tons of property they can't offload.

When the banks crack, new credit is impossible. When that happens, new businesses basically can't stop. Regular people can't buy homes because they can't get credit either. People can't get cars. People who were surviving on credit card debt because of the huge cost of living suddenly find themselves up shit creek.

And it's easy to say "well fuck 'em" but the problem is... they get bailed out. Every time. We do not. We suffer. We deal with the mass layoffs. We deal with the economic stagnation for years. We deal with the loss of our homes. We deal with our landlords defaulting and being unable to meet property tax obligations (that one is Really Bad) or maintenance needs.

When your landlord defaults... that sounds fun? Okay. What's less fun is when the sheriff shows up to your house after a year or two of non-payment and tells you to get the fuck out because they didn't pay the property tax because your landlord is completely hollowed out. Or your landlord is literally a corporate landlord and is now in liquidation, but there are no buyers. So you're just stuck.