A People’s Debt Jubilee

This wonderful image by Escher of two hands drawing each other is one of my favourite pieces of modern art.

For me, it is a brilliant visualization of the idea of bootstrapping. Or to put it more loosely, how you get something from nothing. Evolution is an example. From something simple you can get something complex. From chemistry you bootstrap life. From life you evolve consciousness and self awareness and finally Beethoven and Proust. In evolution there is no need for an outside artist. Species, just like the hands, draw each other in to existence.

I have no idea if Escher meant this when he drew the hands but his engraving captures it nevertheless.

The reason I mention this piece of art is because, if you are a particularly stupid species you can reverse this process. All you need do is replace the pencils with rubbers and you have the perfect image of what we are currently doing in our crisis of collective indebtedness.

So for example the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese and Irish are all erasing themselves in an effort to pay off debt via austerity. Austerity which has so far, failed to reduced the debts but has erased the means by which they had hoped to pay the debts. In each of those countries the economy has shrunk faster than the burden of debts, leaving them worse off than before. Which is why each of them has suffered credit downgrades.

So far so stupid.  What is worse, according to all our leaders and especially all our banks, there is no alternative, no other way out.

I do not think this is true. I suggest an alternative is what we might call a people’s debt jubilee. The idea of a debt jubilee is an old one. I think a collective pan-European, even global, jubilee is worth looking at.

At the moment we are in a funny situation where we may personally regard the situation in Greece, Ireland and Portugal as sad, but we are encouraged nevertheless to see it on a national level, as both just and inevitable because, so we are told, it is a simple story of debtor nations such as Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal, owing vast amounts to the creditor nations like France and Germany.

So, we have the Greeks being crucified by ‘austerity’ in order to pay debts their government owes. Their government owes vast amounts of money partly because of debts it incurred through its own borrowing for its own expenditures, but partly also because it took on the private debts incurred by Greek banks.  The combination has proven to be unsupportable. Ditto for the Spanish, Irish and Portuguese. That’s the story of the ‘debtor’ nations.

But in the ‘creditor’ nations we find something at odds with the official debtor/creditor story. For here too, people, ordinary people, in France, Germany and the UK, are also suffering austerity measures. Here the austerity is blamed upon having to bail out the Greeks, or the Irish , Portuguese or Spanish.

The thing to remember here, is, to focus on the German/Greek example, that the German’s aren’t bailing out the Greeks because they love them so much. They are bailing out the Greeks in order that the Greeks can bail out the German banks. The German banks lent so much money to the Greek State (its various state enterprises) and Greek Banks, that if the Greeks don’t pay it all back – the private debts between private banks as well as State debts, then the German banks implode.

So the reality is the German’s aren’t bailing out ‘the Greeks’, they are bailing out private German banks and their private German debt agreements, The same is true of the Irish and British. The British recently ‘helped’ Ireland with a loan most of which will end up in British Banks. The Portuguese bail out will end up in France and Germany by one route or another.

So when we hear or use the phrase ‘German banks are exposed to Greek debt’ or ‘Greek losses’ what this means is that German banks lent money to Greek enterprises and banks and may now not get it back, if the Greeks default.  Which at first hearing sounds like it’s the Greeks fault. They don’t pay. They are at fault.  Fair enough.

The familiar charge is that the Greeks knowingly took on loans they could not pay back because they wanted a life style they could not afford. But if that is true, if the Greeks ‘knowingly’ took on loans they could not afford, then the bankers also must have known.  Unless you are willing to believe that Greek or Portuguese or Irish, bureaucrats and businessmen – thousands of them across Europe – all managed to put, not one over, but hundreds of billions over, on those ‘smartest men in the room’, year after year, – unless you can believe that, then the much simpler alternative is that the bankers knew as well. If they knew then they too are guilty.

The bankers knowingly lent money to people who could not afford to pay it back. And we KNOW THIS IS TRUE.  The various swaps contracts the Greek government entered into with Goldman Sachs and a whole host of the other Big Banks were specifically designed to hide the true extent of the indebtedness of the Greek government. The Banks KNEW, but lent anyway. And they lent to Spain and Portugal and Italy as well as Greece. This will become painfully clear shortly

Thus the real story is that the banks were delighted to lend to the Greek State, its state owned enterprises, its municipalities, its various private banks and its people, way beyond their ability to pay back. This was the bubble of lending, leverage and deferred payments. The bubble was NOT created by ordinary people, or even their national governments, hoodwinking the world’s banks. It was the world’s banks, those in Greece AND Germany and elsewhere, conniving together to lend and spend and lend some more, much more than was wise. The government’s got to strut on the world stage and talk about their economic brilliance and miracle working, the bankers got massive bonuses and the people made hay while the sun of their masters shone down on them.

So if the Greek state ‘should have known better’ and ‘been more prudent’ then so too should the German French, American and British banks who facilitated their profligacy. And yet all the banks in all the  countries have shed their losses on to the public in all their countries. Not only are the Greek people having to suffer austerity to bail out German banks, so are the German people. The Greeks suffer to pay the Germans, while the Germans suffer to bail out the Greeks so they can pay the Germans. Two hands determindly erasing each other, and for what and whose benefit? The Greeks? The Germans? Or the Bankers?

And this is where the idea of a ‘People’s Debt Jubilee’ comes in. At the moment we are told debtor nations are paying creditor nations. Whereas in reality, the people in all nations are paying and suffering, in order to pay the debts of private banks in all the nations. The division isn’t between nation and nation but between the banks and the people of every nation. In every nation austerity is erasing the wealth, vitality and well-being of the people in large part to pay off the private debts incurred by private banks.

The vitality and hopes of people in Greece are being erased to pay German banks and so too are those of people in Germany. The hands are erasing each other.

But imagine if the German people and the Greek people both said we will not repay private debts of German or Greek or any other banks. The obvious objection is that the German banks would die. And so they would.  But the German people would no longer have to pay the massive bail-outs THEY too have been paying. Let’s not forget that the German tax payer has so far payed hundreds of billions to bail out GERMAN banks dwarfing what they have so far paid to Greek banks. On top of which the money they  will give to Greece is FOR THE GERMAN BANKS anyway.

If the German Banks were left to suffer their private losses then neither the Greeks NOR the German people would have to keep bailing them out. And all that public money from the German tax payer and the Greek taxpayer, currenlty being bled from the people of those nations into private banks would be freed to invest in real production and employment, in both countries. Rather than bail out our present, insolvent banks who remain insolvent even after being bailed out, we would all be better off letting them die, and then putting our bailout money in to new, clean and solvent banks.

At the moment two nations are being yoked to pay off the debts and stupid lending decisions of insolvent private German banks. The same is being done in every other nation to pay off someones banks. It is not nation against nation it is banks against people.

If there were a People’s Debt Jubilee, where BOTH the Greek and the German people refussed to pay the private debts of insolvent German banks, then those German banks would die, true enough. But would the German people be worse off than they will be if they continue, along side the Greeks, to bail out those banks? I don’t think we know the answer for sure.  BUT we do have two and a half years of evidence that diverting public money from real investment in productive employment has not created a sustainable recovery. Our present ‘austerity to pay the banker’s debts’ policy is impoverishing us all. It has set the hands erasing each other. Whereas public money spent on investing in real growth and employment, instead of stuffing the bonus pot for a few thousand bankers, would set the hands drawing each other again and stop them from erasing each other.

At the very least I think we should explore the idea of a People’s Debt Jubilee.  Not just defaulting on what we owe to others but declaring that those who owe us, are free of debt as well. I think we would find we would all be better off if we stopped making each other pay off some greedy bankers’ debts.

32 thoughts on “A People’s Debt Jubilee”

  1. Mark Wadsworth

    That's the nice thing about these government debts – while they are legally due to be paid by the government, the government has no money, and so it imposes a legal obligation on its citizens to hand over taxes to pay them.

    So, for example, while I live in the UK I am forced to hand over money in order to pay old age pensions, private sector procurement PFI nonsense, accrued deficits etc.

    But I am under no obligation to pay the old age pensions in France or Russia or Japan; and workers in those countries are under no obligation to pay old age pensions in the UK.

    So what everybody should do is to [threaten to] leave his own country, and then haggle around between other countries who will offer him the lowest tax bill on his wages, preferably zero.

    Thus leaving behind the land owners, who cannot just take their land abroad, so they would be the ones to pick up the tab, at which stage the workers can merrily return whence they came and live tax free.

  2. I had a long night talking to some Asian friends about debt and enslavement. As they have come from another world so to speak, they have two views of life. The cash machine is being rolled out to all corners of world. For this reason, your top post and a few other reasons I think the original name of film is much better.

    Default

  3. Strong image absolutely brilliant in fact,we are now paying for the profligacy of the financial classes.I used to think that money was part of and certainly not the most important part of "economic activity". How foolish that looks now. Ithink Nathan Rothschild had it about right "Whoever controls the money supply controls the world".Since learning that the bank of england and the federal reserve of america are both private banks I have not found one person who knew that(amongst my friends).That makes me feel slightly less stupid but does nothing about the deep and abiding rage I feel at being cheated and deliberately misled about a mainstay of economic political and social life.
    As far as I understand state pensions are paid out of the current account so there would be no consequences for the basic pension provisions of the people if the banks and no doubt insurance companies were decimated by us refusing to continue to pick up the tab.The people it would effect would be simply by virtue of their wealth.A stark political choice,one that has a lot of resonance with the struggle in the Arab world.
    There are a few symbiotic parasitical relationships in nature but I feel that the scale of the one proposed by the financial elite with us falls way outside the parameters.
    On another tack in the 80's I read a book by Jeremy Rifkind called Entropy in which he tried to link the second law of thermodynamics,thats the one about our ability to neither create or destroy energy but in using it to move it lower down the accessability scale,to our current way of accounting economic activity which pays no regard to the physical situation that prevails.
    Invidious to point out the inescapable nature of our physical circumstances except to say that reforming "money" would be an excellent place to start

  4. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Nigel,

    glad you find the image as meaningful as me. I think Escher has been woefully under rated.

  5. I saw that fantastic image and instantly read it as a metaphor for the crazy situation we are now in, whereby our governments are borrowing money from banks and foreign "investors", in order to bailout banks and "foreign investors".

    Alternatively, in a society which no longer produces much of great utility, as an illustration of economy surviving solely by us taking in each other's washing…?

  6. …hmmm… Some years ago, before the foreclosure debacle was on the radar, a press article about Deutsche Bank misplacing title deeds sort of instigated my ranting days. Then in February 2008 this Bloomberg article came along…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aejJZdqodTCM&refer=home

    At the time, in the heat of the moment, I penned the blog post: "The little guys may yet stick one to the bankers" – in which I stated that if banks were to be made to take their lumps it would be poetic justice. Though not necessarily moral or ethical, I was willing to countenance a sort of jubilee for those folks that had behaved recklessly in a financial manner of speaking if it helped stick one to the bankers.

    Of course in the same way that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", a debt jubilee for the masses would indeed strike a significant blow to the banks and to the governing elites in general. But…. but…

    As I look back at my family's history and at how since the 70s the assets that had been painstakingly set aside by my grand father and my parents through two wars and countless recessions have been gradually pillaged by subsequent governments of all stripes and colors as we so stubbornly refused to play the inflation game, I find the idea of a jubilee abhorrent.

    I am all for the application of the law. If the title deed to a property is missing, by all means! Throw the foreclosing bank out on their ass and let the lucky person that bought the place stay in.

    But a blanket jubilee for all who are in debt? Where does that leave those of us that worked hard and despite living within our means still suffered a progressively lower life style over the years?

  7. I am all for stopping the bailouts and for allowing bankrupt entities go bankrupt. I am all for the application of the letter of the law. I am all for upholding and enforcing personal accountability.

    Let banks and individuals go bankrupt as contemplated by the law of their respective countries.

    Alternatively, I would be ready to contemplate an alternative arrangement whereby debts of individuals are marked down to reflect the current value of the assets pledged against their loans with a proviso that, in future, should the value of said assets rise then the debt would be revised upward accordingly but not exceeding the original value of the loan. In this construct, banks would still succumb to economic reality but those individuals that made extravagant decisions would still be held accountable for their actions.

    I am not at all comfortable with a blanket debt jubilee

  8. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Guidoromero,

    I think for the sake of a recognizable phrase I have been less than clear. I am not actually advocating a complete blanket write off of all debts. I am more, as you were suggesting, writing down debts to actual market values, which for most banks would pole-axe their assets, and looking to write off sovereign debts as per a Debt Commission as I wrote about in "Ireland, Greece and Portugal should default".

    As for savers and nations who have been prudebt, I think they too would benefit from such a "Jubilee" as they would stop being taxed for bail outs and would have banks who were finally healthy and could do some lending and offer real interest on savings.

    Savers have been robbed. I agree. But if we don't change our policies they will continue to be robbed. I believe that if naitons forgave each other their debt – bilaterally or as a group – they would all be better off and so would their people.

  9. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Guidoromero,

    I'm back from taking the children to school and have one further thought. The reason to talk about a Debt Jubilee is to emphasize that we should consider moving from a situation where each country is alone with its debt problems until they cannot go on any longer and then have to declare tha they are going to default. It makes it seem like a lonley and agressive move.

    In a jubilee we all give each other permission to default. We lift the burden of debt from each other voluntarily. That is what I meant to convey.

  10. Hi Golem,

    I hope this isn't just an epiphany you've just had. It's been clear from the start the bad debts were those of the banks not those of the state and that severe austerity is only required because the state decided banks shouldn't be allowed to fail.

    However, many people partook in the credit party based on the false believe that asset prices could only ever rise – that was stupid, should these people also be forgiven their debts?

    Many states spent far beyond their means based on credit bubble induced increases in tax income – that was stupid, should these states be forgiven their debts?

    Let's not be naive here, many of "the people" were just as stupid as the banks.

    It seems to me what needs to be done is what needed to be done at the start – banks forced to mark to market their debts and those not solvent allowed to fail. Depositors should be protected and the banks relaunched as solvent entities with much safer reserve requirements.

  11. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Myopia,

    No not a recent epiphany. I agree with your last paragraph. That is basically what I have been advocating along with many others since this whole thing got started in 07-08.

    But I do feel if we could take a collective decision to forgive debts in other countries rather than stonily wait until each nation just cannot go on and they force the issue, we would be better off.

    What I am advocating is a collective decision to mulitlaterally forgive debt. Not all debt. But a collective, multi nation debt commission to sort out and throw out those debts which people as tax payers should not have to pay. The main focus would be to force bank debts back on to the bank so that they, and not us, as you say, suffer the bankruptcy.

    What you advocate is fine. I agree with it. My question is shall we call for this in our nation but still expect those nations who owe our banks to have to pay them, or advocate what you and I support across national boundaries so that other nations are relieved of paying 'our' bank's debts?

  12. Golem.

    I am very disapointed you seem to be back tracking on your idea. It is simply preposterous to expect ordinary people to know more than their so called "financial advisors" debt has not been just marketed it has been normalised or in the case of student loans forced upon people.

    A debt jubilee just for nations and banks wouldn't solve the problem, it must take individuals into account as well.

    bill40

  13. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Bill40,

    I don't think I'm back-tracking. I'm just making clear that I don't advocate simply saying – all debt owed by anyone to anyone for any reason should be cleared. Bam. Done. I am not advocaing that. I don't think it would be fair or equitable.

    As Guidoromero points out it would simply reward those who had played the get into debt game, for whatever reasons, at the moral and financial expense of those who had tried over the years not to get into debt and who had tried hard save prudently. There surely has to be a balance?

    BUT… by forcing debts being held at private banks and now Central ones as well, all to real market prices and forcing back to the banks private debts curently being held by the tax payer, we would force those Private banks which are insolvent, to go bust. Their debts would no longer be paid off by or in any way supported by the tax payer.

    We would all benefit from this. We would find we had public money to support services and money to invest in a real recovery.

    With the Banks and their bond holders grip non power removed we would also be able to look at debt forgiveness and debt re-scheduling for private, ordinary borowers. Some of whom were sold debts by banks who didn't care.

    I do not think all those who borrowed from the banks should have all their debts written off. DO you think those who played the buy-to-let market, or who speculated by snapping up housing, and flipping it or accumulating it and who then got burned when the bubbble burst, should walk away free? I don't. There is some part of the loss which is properly theirs. A balnket write off seems unfair and unjust to me.

    I have a mortgage. I don't think I deserve to have it paid off. I should pay it. So should many others. Even those who bought at the top and now face losses.

    There are cases of preditory lending. We need to get at them but won't as long as the banks retain their grip on power.

    The first step in removing their grip is to stop them forcing nations to pay off their debts. This is a National problem which I think Nations could collectively address. That is what I am advocating though I have perhaps not made my point very clearly.

    I don't think I am retreating. But if you still think I am then let's talk further.

  14. THE TIME HAS COME FOR MORE SYMMETRY

    Asset-Backed Asymmetrical Risk
    There is a concept here that I was saving for a longer post but maybe others will have the time to explore it.

    It seems that our debt model suffers from Asymmetric Risk. In fact this is the problem with so much of the financial exploitation worldwide.

    Let me explain what I mean – you borrow 200k to buy a house, adding 100k of your own money.

    The house might go up or down in value but you still owe the lender 200k. So the risk of capital loss falls on the borrower only – you sell the house two years later for 250k and it is you who loses the missing 50k, not the bank.

    (The bank would argue that is part of the deal and otherwise you would pay a higher interest rate, but lets look at that later.)

    The bank is guaranteed its 200k returned to it (these days the gvt will even give it taxes if too many borrowers can't repay) plus its % take over the years.

    The risk of good and bad things happening in the transaction is not symmetrically balanced; another way of stating the old 'privatise the profits and socialise the losses' adage.

    So what about a new model for secured loans? One where the loss or profit is shared equally between both parties. On the house example above, you would sell the house for 250k and pay the bank back a total of 175%, sharing the loss equally.

    Sounds mad at first. How could this be policed or arranged? But no madder than a world where nano-second algorithms make thousands of bids every second to control the prices of stocks.

    And, it could be extended to any asset-backed construct. Asset Backed Symetrical Risk Derivatives could bring a smidgen of reality and fairness back to the market.

    Ben

  15. Surely the austerity measures in the UK are designed to show that there is a credible plan for dealing with the UK debt. This reassures the markets, prevents a rating downgrade and ultimately that saves a vast amount of interest. The UK exposure to Greek debt is quite small and cannot be blamed for the austerity measures.

    It should not be forgotten that Greek bonds were rated investment grade not so long ago. Whatever the merits or demerits of the rating agencies, they would have based their assessments mainly on Greek government statistics – and so would everyone else. We know now that the stats were deliberately falsified.

    It is true to say that year on year budget deficits have created an unsustainable debt mountain for the Greek government. Part of the problem has been the widespread and routine evasion of taxes. If the government had received the taxes it should have then it would not have had to borrow as much as it did. Successive governments failed to tackle this, and the present one is not making much progress. The suggestion that the whole of Greek society is venal is becoming obvious to the outside world. So too the idea that this land of liars and cheats do not deserve another bailout.

    One problem with a sovereign bond default is that creditor countries and investors will be very reluctant to lend again, at least not in the near term. This means that the Greek government will be forced to run a balanced budget or they will simply run out of money. They cannot print more money. They will not be able to borrow. They might sell state assets but that is politically difficult. Obviously, when the money runs out there will be pay cuts for government employees, cuts in pensions, and reductions in government spending with knock on effects for businesses that rely on government work. If the Greek people think the present austerity measures are tough (with a 10% budget deficit), how much worse will it be after a default and no budget deficit?

  16. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    beerdrinka,

    I think the austerity measures are designed to, as you put it, "show there is a credible plan for dealing with UK debt." The question is, is it the right one? Our present plan has put private bank debts firmly upon the tax payer. The cost of the bank bail outs and support for insolvent banks has, accoriding the the government's own fugures, cost us about 1.3 trillion pounds in the UK.

    The preswent plan is to keep that massive amount on the public tab and make cuts to public spending to compensate for it. That is 'a plan' all right. But one with which I do not agree.

    It is a plan the bond markets quite like because it is one which protects the bond holders first and foremost from their own losses.

    There are other plans for reducing public, sovereign indebtedness. One of which is to say to the banks and bond holders, "you made the stupid loans, you deal with the losses" Such a plan would be both legal and equitable.

    Private banks would collapse. New banks could be capitalized. Banking would continue. Public finances would be greatly eased.

    As for the nations who defaluted not being able to borrow again – as you say such a lock out would be short term. The evidence is that nations quickly return to the markets once the pile of debts is cleared by default. There are many examples.

    And what is more the bond markets themselves would be cleared out of their own insolvent dead wood.

    With debts cleared sustainable lending instead of short term speculation could restart, leading to a real recovery. Instead of this stagnant limbo of suffering we currently have.

    There are indeed systemic and rule-of-law problems in many countries including Greece. Tax evasion is especially important. But it is worth keeping in mind that the largest tax evaders are not ordinary people but corporations and banks using tax evading, off-shore accounting.

    Faced with the wealthy not paying taxes, those who are less well off feel agreived that the burden of paying for the state should fall on them only. So they too avoid taxes.

    If you want to stop tax evasion deal with those at the top first, because if you don't, what exactly is our moral argument for making those at the bottom obey laws we let the wealthy ignore at their pleasure? That is the present problem.

    In short we do need a credable plan for dealing with public debt. At the moment we have, I think, the wrong one. Ours is a plan designed to benefit the wealthy, the banks and the bond holders. This is not only wrong, I think it is doomed to failure in the end.

    The idea that default makes the sky fall in is wrong. There is plenty evidence that default and debt forgiveness is a quicker and collectively more equitable route to recovery than austerity piled upon the poor for the narrow benefit of the rich.

    That is my opinion.

  17. Ben,

    Re: Asset-Backed Asymmetrical Risk

    That’s an excellent point and I think we’d all love to see a full blown post from you covering this topic. What you suggest is similar to concepts that I’ve touched on in each of my Guest Posts: Sell Freedom Buy Control, Crime & Collective Punishment, and Wall St fiddles whilst the US burns. So it would be good to see this theme tackled cohesively, as you’ve done with a few good examples.

    Currently, debt contracts are being enforced by all available means. The borrower is hit with all the downside risk. A “debt jubilee” would certainly clear the decks, and ensure that the lender takes at least a fair share of the pain (if not a higher proportion). It is, arguably, the most equitable. After all a Lender is deemed to be more skilled/ professional than the Borrower (age old Agent-Principal model), so they should bear the brunt of failures through default.

    My instinct is that this solution is anathema to the powerful moneyed class, though, and so they will do anything and everything feasible to avoid this (including scare mongering a gullible and blood thirsty public, such as that recanted by Beerdrinka above). Default has become a word tainted with fear, such that the public recoils with Pavlovian predictability.

    What you propose though seems akin to converting Debt (Assymetric risk) into Equity (Symmetrical risk). Surely, Equity investing is the very foundation of a supposedly Capitalist economy. Debt is not the engine of entrepreneurship; Equity is!

    So, where art thou’ Equity, when we need you most?

  18. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Ben,

    Can I second what Haweye said above. Should you wish to write a fuller post on this, like Haweye, I would be most interested to read it. Drop me an email and we can talk.

  19. Hi Golem

    i have always seen the answer as QE for the people possiblely by way of time limited money. Give every adult a fixed sum of money to spend how they wish. Debtors can pay down their debts and the prudent are rewarded further and can make up some of the despicable losses forced upon them.

    I think thay any solution will end up rewarding the "feckless" in some way and can I say with a passion how valid your point about the BTL mob .

    As to the future hawkeye, as ever, is right on the errr…. money. do you know what, as a team I believe we can one day make a difference to the squalid choices we are offered.

    Please keep up the great work.

  20. I guess my comment about Mao and power was either not understood nor considered worthy of reply. In the case of the former let me elaborate: The financial elite have no bloody intention of doing the right thing and benefiting people and society in general. One has to proceed from the premises laid out in Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine to understand how they see it and play it.

    This whole "financial crisis" has seen the greatest transfer of wealth upwards in the history of the world and it continues to this day; it's not something done by stupid people incurring unintended consequences.

    So putting it bluntly the only thing that will bring about some cross–class equity will be that which is backed up by guns, i.e. revolution. It's a long way off in the US of A and a lot closer in Greece and Spain, hell the UK even.

    As for blaming people who took on debt they ought not have (such as sub prime loans) if you don't know how they were used then you don't know diddly.

  21. Patz, guns won't do it.

    A police MP5 can have up to a 32 rounds in a box magazine or 100 rounds in a drum magazine. It fires up to 900 rounds per minute. We can't compete with that and that's just what they have in a police car.

    I could get a shotgun off a farmer maybe, they are the only people with guns but that's it. Still have to find shells.

    I wouldn't want to though. That's not and never will be my style. The answer is the people. The people have to say no. So how do we get the people to say no?

    That is the $1,000,000 question.

    Answer that on this blog and 10 minutes later you're gonna be carted off in a black automobile or suffer a road accident. But hey! At least you've got the answer out 🙂

    The answer is a media event worldwide with participants worldwide, simultaneously doing the same thing advertising the opening of minds all day so no media source can ignore it. But the thing has to be crisp, it may have had leads up to it, to set seed in mind like men with beards and the BAM, whole day of it.

    So people have same conversation at same time and an unstopable force is set in motion that no reptilian can stop.

    The Message.

    That would make a great film.

    That would make a great reality.

    If anybody needs me I'm out and nowhere near a road 😀

    Blaming the people who took the loans out is as foolish as blaming Goldman Sachs employees for being shameless. It's the the petri dish in which we grow. The conditions given for life to grow. The system.

    Or maybe what they do might work, slowly slowly catchy monkey.

    It's what the people who are awake will do. I think we all have sleep poralyasis if you ask me though. Jinamizee, I wish I could finish that song:

    Me got Jinamizee, me dunno what to do
    Me got Jinamizee, just like you
    Me got Jinamizee, me avn't got a clue
    Me got Jinamizee, we gotta get through

    Icelandic folk got over their mara
    But the morrigan giving bad karma
    Bound in metal kanishibari
    We gotta let rip, open up that harley

    Now that crushing demon just be a syndrome
    Need to push him off, I know you got it in you
    Take control, of where all are future go
    Kana tevero, you gotta go go

    The blind spot, in your field of vision
    got you stuck, being a statitian
    The evil djinns, be stopping da mission
    We need a call to action, recited by the muzim

    I know I know, I always be preaching
    I know I know, not a lotta teaching
    But the common thread, in all a my speaching
    Stage N2 are the folks that need reaching

  22. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    Patz,

    I'm a Quaker and so not big on violence. That said you might be right. The wealthy have never been good at giving until forced to.

    The question for me is what can I do before we come to that ultimate failure of teh imagination? Is ther anything I can do now, however small, to try to head off the time when violence seems the only answer and people reach for it?

    You see those who will ultimately reach for violence are often those who would do nothing to try to change things earlier. It's as if they stick with a broken system refusing to 'risk' change until it is finally so bad violence seems a quick collective option.

    Mao may be right that it will always come to it. My grandfather, whom I admired desperately, believed so and was ready to fight. And in the end, if it is fight or see my children enslaved, I would fight too.

    But I feel better knowing that I am trying to do something, however small, however laughable in the gramd scheme of things to head off and prevent that catstrophe.

    So I was not ignoring you. I was doing what I can to spread dissent and ideas of change. It may seem futile knowing that the rich won't give up power. But Egypt has shown as many others have before, that popular uprisings can arise and can uproot the seemingly impervious.

    Why shouldn't we try here?

  23. Very interesting post and discussion, as usual.

    I appreciate Golem's subsequent qualification of his concept of debt jubilee which, as I understand it means, more or less: something has to be done to alleviate the burden that's been placed on the real economy by the politically powerful casino players, whose only concern [indeed, legal responsibility] is maximization of short term profit.

    What the latter are doing in fact is killing the goose that lays the proverbial golden egg. But just one further thought. What would the effect of mass die-off of humans be to the present, presumably intractable global financial situation? After all, through a 50%+ increase in industrial mechanization in the past 20-30 years, billions of human workers have been rendered superfluous, from the standpoint of morally bereft casino accountants.

    Add to that the fact that the accrual of the monstrous debt we're being forced to address today has been based on the assumption that economic growth – indisociable from availability of cheap energy –, could be infinite. It's difficult to imagine that the bubble blowers, with all their think tanks and strategic 'gamers', could have been that naive. Or perhaps, from Wall St / City of London's perspective, the amassment of gargantuan debt constituted an opportunity?

    This is something we need to consider: what if the erasure of several billion humans were seen as the most expedient means to solve the "debt crisis"? The idea of mass population reduction is nothing new, after all.

    It's a troubling thought, admittedly, all the more so, given that, with adequate distribution of wealth and appropriate ecological stewardship, the planet could easily support current global population. Moreover, a population that reaped equal benefits from exploitation of resources which, after all, belong to us all, would be much less inclined to rely on high birth rates for generational survival.

    Imo, it is vitally important that we begin to look at the debt catastrophe from a perspective that goes beyond strict monetary concerns. The catastrophic circumstances the world's 95% are being forced to absorb require ground-breaking ideas and organized action.

    A few links, which may be familiar to Golem readers:

    The Impossible Hamster. Which leads, naturally, to this [cracked lip humor by Aussies Clarke and Dawe].

    Many will likely know the famous lecture given by Albert Bartlett, on the mathematics of the exponential function, which is foreign to our native perceptive capabilities.

  24. Good responses: G I respect your Quaker outlook and agree the pot must be stirred at all levels; 24K nope, don't feel you directed anything at me. There are so many of us on so many diverse and yet like–minded blogs that it is indeed frustrating to see through the veil but not be able to pierce it. But we are in for a severe storm of the outhouse variety so some trees will be shaken; some leaves will fall.

  25. Very well and succinctly put. Unfortunately, convincing the general public that the sky won't fall down if the banks go under, or are seized as the solvency laws dictate, appears to be off the radar.

    I just don't understand how people are falling for all of this. I could (partially) understand the emotional desire to believe govts over 9/11 etc. But this? No.

  26. On Asymmetric risk when one considers the leverage implicit in fractional reserve banking the equation looks even more lop sided I am working on a pamphlet calling for Legal reform regarding the ability of Mortgagees in Possession through their appointed receivers ( who are in law the agent of the borrower but appointed by the banks.

    "The idea that Banks have been caught out more than home owners is perverse. The Banks have created commitments for the borrowers to them and actually not given in return what the Borrowers largely believed I.E that their Mortgage is matched by and equal deposit/ saving of another bank customer. At best the banks have 1 tenth of this covered 10% and in many cases it is more like 1 fortieth 1/40 2.5% so on a mortgage of £100,000
    the bank only has capital of at most £10k at risk and in all likely hood more probably £4k at risk. Therefore in distressed sales all on going mortgage payments made should be viewed accordingly and and distressed asset sale again viewed similarly.
    I,e a mortgage holder with 25k negative equity on a mortgage of 100k still has an asset worth at least 7.5 x the capital reserve the bank allocated against making that loan. I.E the borrower remains in debt for 100k a new debt of 75k is created and and the bank gets all its basic capital back has had the interest in the meantime and will still milk the original borrower through the Bankruptcy process for a further 2 years representing further pure profit."
    Full Blog which is really just my notes so far.( some of them at any rate)

    http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.com/2011/05/further-thoughts-on-distressed.html

    The Banks win at all stages along the line and yet they still managed to cock their own system up Through Greed and the fact that there is no Honour amongst Thieves.
    I quoted Ruskin in an earlier comment " I was that Soldier"

    I really like the Lithograph ( or is it a drawing)? by the way.
    This Piece of performance Art is laden with meaning for me worth the 15 minutes it takes to watch.

    Genuine Fakery.Anne Wenzel
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_geZuQh2o

  27. https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2021/12/10/awake-awake-o-sleeper-of-the-land-of-shadows-wake-expand-i-am-in-you-and-you-in-me-mutual-in-love-divine/

    Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:

    Samuel Taylor Coleridges published diaries Table Talk. Table Talk.
    this from 27th April 1823.
    The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich than have a right to be so, or, rather, any ultimate power, in case of a struggle, of actualizing their riches. It is, in effect, like an ordinary, where three hundred tickets have been distributed, but where there is, in truth, room only for one hundred. So long as you can amuse the company with any thing else, or make them come in successively, all is well, and the whole three hundred fancy themselves sure of a dinner; but if any suspicion of a hoax should arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there would be two hundred without a potato for their money; and the table would be occupied by the landholders, who live on the spot.
    http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8489/pg8489.html

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