World News

No, you do. You just don't realise it. If you live in any developed country or even most developing countries, you have all of these. Your comment is really giving off the vibes of someone who doesn't know what they have because they've never lived in a world without it.

When I say "access to cheap credit", I mean that you can, if you want, go down to your bank and ask for a personal loan. As long as you are not already overburdened by debt and have a decent income, the bank will lend money to you at interest rates that medieval kings could only dream of.

Without the financial and legal infrastructure to facilitate, what are your options? Without the state to enforce debts and contracts through legal channels, people historically have resorted to threats and violence instead. And all that risk means interest rates get jacked through the roof. Triple digit APRs, baby.

When I say you have the ability to "transact business remotely", I mean that you can pay money, be paid money, and conduct financial business without having to physically attend in person to exchange physical objects (like coins or banknotes). The financial infrastructure in place allows you to transfer money anywhere in the world from your fingertips. You can sell or buy almost anything online, pay, and have it delivered to your doorstep without ever talking to anyone or leaving your house. Without that financial infrastructure, your options are pretty limited. Either unregulated trust-based informal systems, or you have to go and bring physical goods or money to someone.

When I say you "have the ability to plan for your future financially", I don't mean you have the ability to plan yourself into a comfortable future. Being poor doesn't negate this. You have a job (presumably), and every month you can expect some regular amount of money to appear into your bank account. You can plan on that happening. You can also plan on the fact that said money has a predictable value. You also can predict with good certainty what that money can buy. All of that is because the financial system has created an incredible amount of currency stability. Even countries with poor economies by modern standards are incredibly stable by historic ones.

When I say you "have the ability to save", I don't mean that you personally are guaranteed to have excess money to save. I mean that the very act of saving is not made impossible. If you have the money, you can put it in the bank, and you can reasonably expect to get that money back later, possibly with interest. In comparison, in a country that's in a state of economic collapse, you can't put money in the bank without risking not being able to get it back. You can store cash at home without the risk that the Government will just declare your money invalid or inflate away its value. You might not even be able to buy gold because the Government forbids "hoarding" gold. The act of saving, the accumulation of excess money, is literally impossible for the everyday person in that scenario.

This might not apply to you, but as a person whose family immigrated from a second-world country to a first-world one, I see far too many Westerners complaining about how bad they have it and how they wish everything would collapse. Buddy, if everything collapsed you'd have it even worse. This isn't even "champagne socialism" or whatever the hell the reactionaries call it, it's just plain ignorance of how the world works and what one shouldn't take for granted.