"In the end, they have to settle the debts." This is the foundation or your argument and it is wrong. At best, it's an assumption. The best treatise on this s

"In the end, they have to settle the debts." This is the foundation or your argument and it is wrong. At best, it's an assumption. The best treatise on this subject, imo, is David Graeber's : Debt: The First 5000 years.[0] Graeber is an anthropologist -- he's about to take the Chair as Professor of Anthropology at LSE -- so it is far from being a dry financial read. It's a fascinating text that will, if not change, certainly make you rethink any assumption you have about debt and money. In fact, in the early chapters he disconnects debt from money entirely. From page 2: "Surely one has to pay one's debts". It tackles your comment head on, but not in the way you might expect. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years