Time preference is a core concept in economics and finance. The idea is that most people place greater value on a dollar today than a dollar in the future. Spending money now allows you to consume with certainty. Saving money allows someone else to consume now. The rate of return on your savings compensates you for deferring consumption.
Edward Chancellor, a financial journalist, asks his readers to imagine the present and future as two countries separated by a river. Finance is the bridge that connects them. Interest is the toll that those who want to consume now must pay and, equivalently, the fee earned by those willing to defer their consumption. The level of the interest rate regulates the movement of capital.
