[hnfong]

> A mortgage to buy a house to raise a family at 30 instead of waiting until 60 is also a form of consumption smoothing.

FWIW I think that's nuts too. Maybe it makes sense for people with a well defined, stable, secure career track (eg. civil servants, academics with tenure, etc.), but for those whose job could be severely disrupted by various shocks (which IMHO should include the majority of people), this taking out a mortgage under the assumption that your earnings would rise as your career progresses is really nuts.

Of course, the idea that a person takes out a mortgage at 30 is baked into modern society, so there are massive social structures to ensure that the average person is actually able to pay off their debt eventually. This includes shaming corporations for firing people or reducing wages for underperforming employees, government subsidies for business that should have just failed, underpaying juniors because otherwise who got money to raise your wages when you have 10 years of experience, etc. etc...

[s1artibartfast]

I don't think it's nuts. I think there are huge costs to not taking risk that are often greater than the actual risk people take on. And it's a balance and you're not going to get it right by avoiding risk entirely.