The Shape of Things to Come

5 minute read. I was raised by back-to-the-land hippies, so I grew up with a pretty negative view of capitalism, but also with no clear idea of what the word meant. My parents were distrusting of rich people; a bias I still carry with me even as I'm becoming one. They considered debt to be evil; they never even had a mortgage, having bought five acres in the 1970s for $10,000 which they borrowed from my five-year-old brother's inheritance. They paid him back, though I have no idea if interest was involved. So anathema was debt that I honestly believed I couldn't go to college without a free-ride, since they had no money to send me. I managed to get enough scholarships from writing a dizzying array of application essays, but upon arrival I realized my stress was probably misplaced given everyone else had taken out student loans.  One of my closet friends in college had the opposite upbringing, where his family not only discussed investment at the dinner table, but played Mon...