It's my pleasure to present another guest post from The Mound of Sound. I miss his blog because he often wrote of things I hadn't thought of. Global debt is one of those things:
You think you've got problems. The US debt clock just passed $40 trillion. That's a per capita debt of $114,285. Every man, woman and child and the clock is ticking.
But let's not stop there. The global debt stands at $350 trillion. Per capita that's a more manageable $43,750 although a fair percentage of those people are impoverished. Taken collectively the total debt represents 305% of global gross domestic product.
We're embarking on a very difficult time from the ravages of climate breakdown to water shortages, food insecurity, on and on and on.
What if we agreed that this is no time to be carrying 305% of GDP in debt. This is where we need to become a little creative.
I invoke the ghostly spirit of Solon. Sol who? Solon was an Athenian lawmaker. In 594 BCE, Athens had a nightmarish debt crisis. The lower orders were defaulting on their debts. Debtors and their families were being slung into prisons, some sold into slavery. Their creditors, the merchants, were in their own predicament. Too many of their traditional customers were in jail. You can't sell stuff to a guy in jail.
Solon's solution was a purge to cancel debt. "Seisachtheia (meaning "shaking off of burdens"), a revolutionary debt relief reform that canceled all debts, banned loans secured by personal freedom, and freed citizens enslaved due to debt."
I realize I'm digging pretty deep into the past on this yet this crippling measure of debt with the challenges that we cannot avoid could make paupers of all of us if we don't see the unmanageable debt as the threat.
Humanity is coming in for a crash landing. Now we must decide if it will be survivable
It seems like the Mound is breaking out of his self-imposed retirement? Welcome back to the fray.
ReplyDeleteThe size of the 'Debt' is bound be part of the breakdown of international order when debt-defaults add to this (partial|) list of trust-breaking:
* As when one country kidnaps the president of another country.
* As when gold reserves left for safe-keeping in the UK are stolen from the owners.
* As when countries start illegal wars and others are given a pass on genocide.
There is clearly a litany of abuses committed by the U.S., Anon. That gold is being transferred out is an indictment of its standing in the world, and the massive distrust they have engendered. I doubt they can recover any goodwill in the short or medium-term, even when their master is gone.
DeleteI miss the Mound. Time for him to refill his inkpot, sharpen his quill, and rejoin the community.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear, Bill! Let's hope he heeds your advice.
ReplyDeleteSolon's debt forgiveness solution was revolutionary for the Greek world but something that it appears was, more or less, standard operating procedure in the ancient Mesopotamian cultures.
ReplyDeleteCertainly it shows up in Babylon and earlier in Assyria. One can even find reference to it in the bible in Leviticus 25 ; presumably it is something the Israelites picked up in Babylon.
Michael Hudson's and forgive them their debts covers much of this history. Hudson writes that the Babylonians strictly distinguished between personal debt (student loan?) and commercial debt. Personal debt could be forgiven, you were stuck with commercial debt.
If I understand Hudson's argument personal debt enriched the wealthy and threatened the state.
Thanks for the additional information. I assume this is The Mound?
Delete