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We need to re-moralize the language around debt and bring back the concept of usury. There is a reason the European middle ages were so hard on the matter, it
by carsongross 9y ago
We need to re-moralize the language around debt and bring back the concept of usury. There is a reason the European middle ages were so hard on the matter, it came from the experiences of the late roman empire when debt consolidated wealth and then destroyed the social order. (Sound familiar?)
Some ancient usury-based systems had the good sense to have a debt jubilee every fifty years or so to stave off complete societal collapse. Steve Keen has proposed a modern implementation of such a debt jubilee:
http://www.ideaeconomics.org/a-modern-jubilee/ http://www.ideaeconomics.org/a-modern-jubilee/
Sticking our kids, especially our intelligent ones, in this much debt before they even have a chance at family formation is deeply dysgenic and is civilizational suicide.
- johnnyb9 9y agoI think even better would be to have the federal government get out of the student loan business altogether -- it's been shown that as 60% of federal aid increases end up increasing tuition by that amount.
- maxerickson 9y agoBankruptcy is a personal jubilee. I think if you are talking about societal policies, we should try to move away from credentialism and better fund people that want to go study. How you do that I have no idea.
- nandemo 9y agoStudent loans are largely subsidized. If you call that usury then you'll have to call any interest-bearing loans "usury". The main issue is why US tertiary tuition is so high in the first place. In fact, the virtually unlimited supply of student loans is part of the problem (more loans -> more demand for college -> colleges raise the price).