[roenxi]

Something interesting in the mix is that our emotions aren't calibrated to capitalism - we're turned to a sort of hunter-gatherer existence with maybe some farming. At a gut level most humans don't understand how to contextualise an offer of 2% compounding return on their capital.

I'd imagine evolution is (metaphorically) carefully monitoring the situation and working out what it needs to do to take advantage of these new options. It isn't actually crazy to expect people to develop twitchy panicked feelings at the though of spending money. The opportunity cost of being a spendthrift is very high, a lot of people came through the greatest wealth expansion in human history and had an opportunity to buy in to it and then spent the money on idle luxuries. Understandable but probably not optimal choices.