Okay, “perpetual motion machine” might have been hyperbolic—the comparison I had in mind was to what we might call a “weak” perpetual motion machine, which doesn’t generate energy but is exactly frictionless, so it twirls forever without energy input.
So, don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice hack, but it’s hardly perpetual or earth-shattering. One similar trick I know of is to have several credit cards, and use them to keep transferring the balance between them before interest accumulates; but this is less efficient, since the “free balance transfer” special offers occur relatively rarely.
Do it for long enough and inflation will eventually reduce the debt to a negligible amount. In twenty years, at three percent rate of inflation, your debt will only be worth 54% of what it initially was!
Okay, “perpetual motion machine” might have been hyperbolic—the comparison I had in mind was to what we might call a “weak” perpetual motion machine, which doesn’t generate energy but is exactly frictionless, so it twirls forever without energy input.
Interesting! Didn’t know about that variant.
Do it for long enough and inflation will eventually reduce the debt to a negligible amount. In twenty years, at three percent rate of inflation, your debt will only be worth 54% of what it initially was!