A 5,000-Year-Old Plan to Erase Debts Is Now a Hot Topic in America
In ancient Babylon, a newly enthroned king would declare a jubilee, wiping out the population’s debts. In modern America, a faint echo of that idea — call it jubilee-lite — is catching on.
No no no no no. Nope.
When I was posting about the financial armageddon of 2008, I raised the possibility of a jubilee: Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #427: 777. Things were melting down so badly that even one of the sharpest minds covering finance — Ambrose Evans-Pritchard — surrendered to the idea of a jubilee: Biblical debt jubilee may be the only answer.
But it’s not a solution. It’s a trap. It’s to keep the current system intact. Everything that led us to crisis will only reoccur.
Back in 2008, I read a book called The Web of Debt. In the eleven years since, I’ve come across nothing better than that book to explain matters.
If we ever had anything resembling a jubilee, it should have happened as punishment back in 2008-2009. The government chose to fine financial behemoths for the crooked mortgages they wrote. In essence, they got off free. In a just world, all of the homes that were foreclosed on would have been surrendered to the people who bought them. Instead, the banks were allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains. Surrendering the homes would have been apt punishment — and it would have done a hell of a lot more for the overall economy than the laughable fines the government imposed.
So no. A jubilee is no solution. The system is corrupt beyond repair. It needs to be rebooted.
