[iaw]

Based on your comment I think you may be missing one aspect:

The money you get lent at the bank is the money people are investing.

Both of the things you describe in this comment are two halves of a market. There's someone borrowing money and someone lending money. The borrowing becomes more expensive because the lender has better alternatives.

[Exuma]

Ahhh, do you know what's funny is after I wrote that comment I went to the bathroom and while peeing I basically had the intuition they were 2 halves of the same thing, but I couldn't even articulate it. I was going to come back and try to ask again and I saw this comment. Thanks!

All this stuff I've tried to learn a few times and it's just so open ended, my mind is very more technically oriented and vague hand-waving statements on investopedia drives me crazy. Other people seem to understand it so easily but after the multiple attempts that I have made, I just have given up.

[iaw]

Read "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel

It's the best non-biased primer I've found on finance.

[Exuma]

Thanks! I just ordered it.