OK. Then I confirm that I agree with you: there surely is (for some people if not all) a psychological difference between having debt and having no debt, and it’s surely (for most of those people if not all) in favour of the latter, and Jacob’s article might have been improved by taking that into account.
But here’s a counterargument: he isn’t claiming to offer a complete analysis of debt and why one might choose to take it on or not; he’s pointing out one thing about debt, its “anti-investment” character, and looking in some detail at that. When I started writing this comment I wrote “would have been improved” at the end of the paragraph above, but the more I think about the point in this paragraph the less I believe that, hence the weaker language that stands there now.
OK. Then I confirm that I agree with you: there surely is (for some people if not all) a psychological difference between having debt and having no debt, and it’s surely (for most of those people if not all) in favour of the latter, and Jacob’s article might have been improved by taking that into account.
But here’s a counterargument: he isn’t claiming to offer a complete analysis of debt and why one might choose to take it on or not; he’s pointing out one thing about debt, its “anti-investment” character, and looking in some detail at that. When I started writing this comment I wrote “would have been improved” at the end of the paragraph above, but the more I think about the point in this paragraph the less I believe that, hence the weaker language that stands there now.