Most of us are have debts of some kind. Whether it’s a mortgage, credit cards, or loan repayments. But what if those debts were set to last forever?
These days debts have a cutoff point. But a few hundred years ago there were things called perpetual bonds, which demanded interest repayments for, well, forever.
Tom Scott explains the case of one perpetual bond which is still paying out to this day. With the Dutch water authority giving Yale University money every year.
I’m not sure I could live with a perpetual debt hanging over my head, even if it did only amount to a few dollars each year. But then I panic if I owe my girlfriend a fiver.
