It's been a good decade that all economies have been run on unlimited leverage and funded by private, bank-issued debt. Coincidence or cause?

As for the actual discussion – the other day two thoughts occurred to me:

– as long as I can remember, politicinas and people with financial power have been saying "In times like these we need to… blah blah blah". I guess that favours the "it's always a 'crisis' " argument.

On the other hand, it seems like there has been something wrong with modern economies for a good while. It seems that for a good decade nobody can run an economy with anything approachin5 5% interest rates anymore, which used to be considered neutral.
That lies in the "something more is wrong this time" camp.

I wasn't meaning to be defensive or aggressive as regards defence of family.

All revolutions have been bourgeoise. Except perhaps the English revolution? I know it is rarely written of as being a revolution but, in my view, it most certainly was. I think it high time we picked up where we left off.

I certainly wouldn't question anyone's defense of their family; my point was about perspective, not ethics.

All the best, Golem.

Will the present situation blow up on its own. I beleive it will. I think it is. It's just that there is such a lot of it, that it seems to take for ever.

If I'm wrong and the damage can be contained by yet moer debts, then the question changes as you point out, to, will people do anything about being enslaved to pay off the rich man's debts?

I don't know. All I can do, is what I am doing – trying to counter what I regard as the complicity of the main stream media with those who would subjugate us all to a system designed to benefit only the very few.

Revolutions are always unlikely affairs. Why should the next one, ours, be any different?

If the populations of Europe are about to be squeezed (further) into a life of debt peonage, then they will be joining a global population for whom this situation has already been the case for a long time. I'm concerned that there's an overprivileging of our own position when analysing current events, a tendency to thing that we have reached an eschatalogical moment simply because our standards of relative affluence have been violated. Capitalism has been in rude health for a very long time, precisely because it makes such near-impossible demands of human life.

Until our analysis acquires some practical content, then I worry that the self-destruction of the system is only wishful thinking. I agree with you that debt repudiation has to be a principle of resistance.

I know Capitalism is always supposed to be in a crisis. A permanent state of re-inventing itself etc etc. I don't think that is the case this time.

Nothing is being re-invented. The bottom line for me is the debts. The banks and now nations owe money they just don't have. I do not think the present system can hold together with everyone crippled by debts they can't pay. AND then everyone expected to pay off bank debts while watching their lives and hopes torn apart. And that is what is going to happen. Thi is just the lull of the phoney war.

So far we have thrown more debt at our debt problem. We used one credit card to make a minumum payment on another. We had debts. Now we have those and the debts we took on, in order just to make the minimum payments on the first lot of debts.

Now we have two debts and two interest payments. Growth is collapsing and borrwoing costs are going up. Our governments are on the cusp of being forced into another round of debt and/or printing. It will, I think be an idiocy too far.

Health? I don't think so.