Worldwide debt forgiveness

[InTradePro]

One of the rumors going around the internet is the possibility of future worldwide debt forgiveness.

The idea is that on a certain date leaders around the world would announce they had agreed that all public and private debt was forgiven and that this would be a reboot of the entire financial system.

What is your view on this? Would it work in practice?

Some would not be so well off, but no one would be in debt. The chinese who technically would lose a lot of money and don't really need it and they are unlikely to get it from the current debt repayment anyway, so for them it might be a good way to clear the air and move on.

Comments?

[Icymudpuppy]

BS. The people who own all the debt are the very folks who are in power, and least likely to give up their power.

[The Gold Standard]

Well, every bank on earth would be insolvent if they lose those assets from their books, so we had better fire up the printing press while we're at it so we can refill them. It's all a big game since none of the money they hold is worth anything anyway.

[Steven Douglas]

The Producers, a film written and directed by Mel brooks in 1968, tells the global story in a nutshell. From wiki: The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan improbably go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.

In reality you can only sell 100% of a thing, but that is not how our global economy works. Hundreds of percent of shares to the same physical wealth are sold and traded in many forms, which in turn creates conflicting claims of ownership. This "circle of ownership" (of debt, or promises, no less) can never be allowed to contract. It can only expand. A "collapse" is another way of saying, "All claims are now due and payable", which in turn causes a "run on the global physical wealth bank", which in turn reveals the fraud that is inherent in our inflationary debt-based monetary system.

It has to happen eventually, but it will be no different than what Roosevelt did. Rather than name and punish The Producers - those embezzlers originally responsible for creating all ALL of the multiple conflicting claims, and the inevitable defaults, as the criminals they are, the public will instead be named as a bunch of bad investors, all of whom simply need to forgive one another and move on.

Meanwhile, The Producers will need to get about the business of starting up another production - this time one that is large enough in scale to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

[bluesc]

The Producers, a film written and directed by Mel brooks in 1968, tells the global story in a nutshell. From wiki: The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan improbably go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.

In reality you can only sell 100% of a thing, but that is not how our global economy works. Hundreds of percent of shares to the same physical wealth are sold and traded in many forms, which in turn creates conflicting claims of ownership. This "circle of ownership" (of debt, or promises, no less) can never be allowed to contract. It can only expand. A "collapse" is another way of saying, "All claims are now due and payable", which in turn causes a "run on the global physical wealth bank", which in turn reveals the fraud that is inherent in our inflationary debt-based monetary system.

It has to happen eventually, but it will be no different than what Roosevelt did. Rather than name and punish The Producers - those embezzlers originally responsible for creating all ALL of the multiple conflicting claims, and the inevitable defaults, as the criminals they are, the public will instead be named as a bunch of bad investors, all of whom simply need to forgive one another and move on.

Meanwhile, The Producers will need to get about the business of starting up another production - this time one that is large enough in scale to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

What is your profession? You always have in-depth posts about economics.

[InTradePro]

Well, every bank on earth would be insolvent if they lose those assets from their books, so we had better fire up the printing press while we're at it so we can refill them. It's all a big game since none of the money they hold is worth anything anyway.

How could a bank or anything be insolvent it would have no debts, no liabilities, it might have little assets also but that doesn't make it insolvent.

[Kludge]

Hm.... If I operate on the assumption that my debt will be worth less in the future, can I legitimately call applying for debt an investment even if I have no use for the debt-money?

[ninepointfive]

The entire system is based on debt. this is never going to happen unless a full out collapse occurs.

[Steven Douglas]

What is your profession? You always have in-depth posts about economics.

Physics in general, with strong, active interests in geophysics (geodynamics), gas flow measurement and control for the semiconductor industry, and electronics in general. Nothing economics related, actually. Which makes mainstream economics look funny to me, given that it borrows so loosely (and ridiculously) from methodologies of physics which are simply not applicable to irreducible, "irrational" people!

I view economics, including banking and finance, like computer technology prior to the advent of personal computers. I learned Cobal and Fortran using manually wired "plug boards" and stacked and sorted IBM punch cards and paper tape readers. I worked on a DEC PDP-11 computer in the 70's, a refrigerator sized 16 bit "mini-computer", in a time where computer technology was considered incomprehensible and inaccessible to lay people and lay consumption - the stuff of geniuses, geeks and social misfits with their slide rules and jam-packed pocket protectors. That was in a day when very few, not including myself, could even conceive of the practical use of "home computers". Ludicrous, given all the complexity involved.

Imagine telling a ten year-old who wants to surf the internet:

"No, you don't understand. First, I need to teach you about binary logic, because bits, binary digits, or 1's and 0's - that makes up the "machine language" of computers. Very simple, but a language you just don't speak. Do you know Boolean algebra? Logic tables, etc., - AND, OR, NAND, NOR, EXCLUSIVE OR? No? Oh boy, do we have our work cut out for us. We also have other languages - programming languages - that translate instruction sets to machine language and binary logic after compiling, but they are even more complex as well... Then, of course, there is the hardware. Do you know what a CPU is? A shift register? A multiplexer? A microprocessor is the "brain" of a computer - it has input, output, memory, arithmetic and control...furthermore..."

"Are you paying attention? Do you understand so far?"

...and the eyes glaze over - if you are a normal person living in the '70's.

"Good. Keep understanding it that way. That's why I make the big bucks."

The ten year-old of today can text with blinding speed under his/her desk without alerting the teacher, sending and receiving files, while performing massive computations (e.g., playing games).

No, for computers to be in homes, there is simply too much to be explained, and too many things that can go wrong. And besides, they aren't interested anyway - look at their attention spans!

Likewise, nobody can conceive of a lay public which has a critical, rudimentary, and most of all accurate understanding of economics, let alone MONEY.

Bull$#@!. I will never accept that. If that is true, then we are truly DOOMED to live as slaves, and all because a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates FAILED to manifest a PERSONAL UNDERSTANDING of economics. Which is ironic, because ALL economics is reducible from and seeded by the individual, regardless how it is measured, predicted or manipulated in the aggregate.

HOW a computer works is not nearly as important as what it actually does. That is highly, HIGHLY explicable. And not using goofy little stories about fish and villages, shells and wampum, or using analogies and metaphors which are neither accurate nor applicable.

My only aim - my objective really - is to distill everything to its most basic core, given that economists have not evolved to the point where they can accurately describe what they understand, and how it all works - to a child - and therefore the lay public...which is not stupid, and is capable of understanding, once the all the complexities are reduced to a useful interface, and the story is clearly told.

The entire story of economics has been made deliberately and unnecessarily complex, such that it appears to be untellable. If one in a million cannot diagnose the symptoms and destructive forces involved in a debauched currency (Keynes), then one in a billion cannot tell that story in a way that is both accurate and resonates with the public. That is my only aim: To reduce all of the fundamentals of economics, banking and finance, and learn to tell the story in a way that everyone can understand, and which nobody can refute. That is an enormous challenge (how long did it take us to get from MS-DOS to Windows?), but it is a challenge that excites me, because it has yet to happen on the face of this Earth. And we are ripe for it. Screwed, in fact, without it.

In short:

"I want to document coldly, rationally, what is being done here."
GANDHI (the movie)

[ShaneEnochs]

Debt is how the world economy works. There's no way countries and banks are going to forgive debt.

[Steven Douglas]

Forgive us our debts, and our debtors, as we punish those who kited them to one another on our behalf.

[BattleFlag1776]

My only aim - my objective really - is to distill everything to its most basic core, given that economists have not evolved to the point where they can accurately describe what they understand, and how it all works - to a child - and therefore the lay public...which is not stupid, and is capable of understanding, once the all the complexities are reduced to a useful interface, and the story is clearly told.

The entire story of economics has been made deliberately and unnecessarily complex, such that it appears to be untellable. If one in a million cannot diagnose the symptoms and destructive forces involved in a debauched currency (Keynes), then one in a billion cannot tell that story in a way that is both accurate and resonates with the public. That is my only aim: To reduce all of the fundamentals of economics, banking and finance, and learn to tell the story in a way that everyone can understand, and which nobody can refute. That is an enormous challenge (how long did it take us to get from MS-DOS to Windows?), but it is a challenge that excites me, because it has yet to happen on the face of this Earth. And we are ripe for it. Screwed, in fact, without it.

+rep. This quote should be cited whenever a person asks for an example of someone giving a damn!

[Working Poor]

Forgive us our debts, and our debtors, as we punish those who kited them to one another on our behalf.

lol

[cubical]

If I had $100 in debt payable to you. And you have $100 in debt payable to me, then sure, we could forgive each other debt. But its not like that at all.

[-C-]

Hm.... If I operate on the assumption that my debt will be worth less in the future, can I legitimately call applying for debt an investment even if I have no use for the debt-money?

Maybe.

[Mattsa]

One of the rumors going around the internet is the possibility of future worldwide debt forgiveness.

The idea is that on a certain date leaders around the world would announce they had agreed that all public and private debt was forgiven and that this would be a reboot of the entire financial system.

What is your view on this? Would it work in practice?

Some would not be so well off, but no one would be in debt. The chinese who technically would lose a lot of money and don't really need it and they are unlikely to get it from the current debt repayment anyway, so for them it might be a good way to clear the air and move on.

Comments?

Yeah

It'll NEVER happen

The debt based monetary system is the most efficient "non violent" means to control masses of people.

Think about it...........

The world Bank and the IMF keep 2/3rds of the global population in abject poverty and misery DELIBERATELY. Have you ever read Economic Hitman by John Perkins?

The modern global monetary is an extremely sophisticated system of "resource allocation". Money created as debt allocates the vast bulk of the world's wealth into the hands of a very small number of people, institution, corporations and banks. Huge swathes of the planet are kept in perpetual poverty......deliberately.

The whole idea is to keep as many people as possible just above the threshold of misery where they might get frisky and start chopping peoples' heads off. What is happening now is they are extending the misery that exists in the 3rd world into the developed nations via globalisation, corporatisation and a banking and economic system designed to asset strip the middle class.

So I'm afraid, there will not be a "debt Jubillee"

Debt is what concentrates all the power and resources into the hands of the ruling elite.......and they will do everything in their power to keep it that way........including starting WW3.

[Mattsa]

The Producers, a film written and directed by Mel brooks in 1968, tells the global story in a nutshell. From wiki: The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan improbably go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.

In reality you can only sell 100% of a thing, but that is not how our global economy works. Hundreds of percent of shares to the same physical wealth are sold and traded in many forms, which in turn creates conflicting claims of ownership. This "circle of ownership" (of debt, or promises, no less) can never be allowed to contract. It can only expand. A "collapse" is another way of saying, "All claims are now due and payable", which in turn causes a "run on the global physical wealth bank", which in turn reveals the fraud that is inherent in our inflationary debt-based monetary system.

It has to happen eventually, but it will be no different than what Roosevelt did. Rather than name and punish The Producers - those embezzlers originally responsible for creating all ALL of the multiple conflicting claims, and the inevitable defaults, as the criminals they are, the public will instead be named as a bunch of bad investors, all of whom simply need to forgive one another and move on.

Meanwhile, The Producers will need to get about the business of starting up another production - this time one that is large enough in scale to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

Fantastic post

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that

[Chester Copperpot]

BS. The people who own all the debt are the very folks who are in power, and least likely to give up their power.

you got it...

they might forgive some debt under some conditions like people and govts ceding more power to them (the bankers) but the same system is still in place and more debt will quickly replace any debt forgiven and we will be in the same boat.

[Working Poor]

I guess "forgive us our debts as we forgive those who debt against us" will not come into play with the IMF or the fed.

[xFiFtyOnE]

Ok say the bank that owns my mortgage collapses. As does a few other major national banks. Would this not cause some kind of debt forgiveness? Or would they just sell the loans to the "surviving" banks?

[wgadget]

In the biblical Old Testament, every 7th year was the year of jubilee...Debts forgiven, slaves freed, etc.

Sounds good to me. God never liked fake money. Remember the incident in the temple, when Jesus got so angry he flipped the money changers' tables over in a rage?

[2young2vote]

I'm just thinking of how hard it would be to get credit after this Would you loan out money if there was a possibility the government would say "sorry, they don't have to pay it back"? And who says if they do it more than once it will be a TOTAL sweep of debt. They could just randomly choose to eliminate debt for whatever political reason they have for anyone they want. Then the liberals are going to blame the corporations and big banks for not loaning out money and hurting the poor people

[InTradePro]

The entire system is based on debt. this is never going to happen unless a full out collapse occurs.

You read the world media recently? A full out collapse is spoken as a real possibility.
- "a euro collapse is now just a matter of time. "

If I had $100 in debt payable to you. And you have $100 in debt payable to me, then sure, we could forgive each other debt. But its not like that at all.

If you gave a reason I could refute it, but it's not like that at all.

Debt is how the world economy works. There's no way countries and banks are going to forgive debt.

Yeah

It'll NEVER happen

All replies without substance. We require production of cotton and sugar so slavery can't be ended, yet history shows otherwise.
Because Ron Paul hasn't won he isn't electable. It'll NEVER happen.

[InTradePro]

Bumping now that Iceland has started some sort of debt forgiveness.


PS Could a mod correct the spelling in the title! 'forgiveness'

[enter`name`here]

what about all those investors who have their retirement fund invested in "risk free" government debt?

[Noble Savage]

I have no debt to be forgiven...maybe I should get some

[WilliamC]

One of the final barriers to overcome is the barrier of fear.

So many think that the only way out of our problems is through some sort of global calamity, and that if the current power structure goes down then there will be worldwide chaos, war, and armageddon.

There are actually some religious fanatics who honestly believe that human history will end because god will get pissed off and punish us.

Indeed, the core of the problem is that a small minority of said fanatics have taken it upon themselves to hurry god along as it were, and they in their minds share the same delusions that dictators and rulers and kings and tyrants have always had throughout history, they start to think of themselves as gods.

Since there are already so many religious wackos who do think god is coming to end human history then, even if they don't support this tiny minority of psychopaths they share the ultimate goal, i.e. the end of humanity. They fear going against the powers that be because they too think they are unworthy and deserve to be punished and that human history is pre-ordained to end in some religious armageddon.

Then there are those of us who have such a hard time accepting that this type of religious fanaticism is real that we tend to dismiss it all as nonsense, especially when there is so much occult idiocy mixed in with it. But just because I don't believe this doesn't mean that those trying to control everything don't either, they very well could be basing their actions on weird mystical mumbojumbo from thousands of years ago.

Truth is most people really don't think like I do, and so who am I to scoff at their motivations, especially when they impinge on my ability to be free and prosperous?

[Liberty74]

Is this a joke? Debt forgiveness? Really?

That means a lot of people aren't getting paid and a lot of businesses going out of business. It's why Europe has been propping up little Greece for years. If they default the ripple effect is MASSIVE. It could cause a world wide economic collapse because their debts are tangled into many industries - other countries, banking, pensions, IMF, ECB, etc.

The BEST thing to do is not bail out anything or anyone. When you do bailouts or debt forgiveness, you create this entitlement to do things wrong/bad all over again.

[Paul Or Nothing II]

Yeah

It'll NEVER happen

The debt based monetary system is the most efficient "non violent" means to control masses of people.

Think about it...........

The world Bank and the IMF keep 2/3rds of the global population in abject poverty and misery DELIBERATELY. Have you ever read Economic Hitman by John Perkins?

The modern global monetary is an extremely sophisticated system of "resource allocation". Money created as debt allocates the vast bulk of the world's wealth into the hands of a very small number of people, institution, corporations and banks. Huge swathes of the planet are kept in perpetual poverty......deliberately.

The whole idea is to keep as many people as possible just above the threshold of misery where they might get frisky and start chopping peoples' heads off. What is happening now is they are extending the misery that exists in the 3rd world into the developed nations via globalisation, corporatisation and a banking and economic system designed to asset strip the middle class.

So I'm afraid, there will not be a "debt Jubillee"

Debt is what concentrates all the power and resources into the hands of the ruling elite.......and they will do everything in their power to keep it that way........including starting WW3.

Whoa! You almost convinced me that central-planning actually works! But then I snapped back to reality!

I'm just thinking of how hard it would be to get credit after this Would you loan out money if there was a possibility the government would say "sorry, they don't have to pay it back"? And who says if they do it more than once it will be a TOTAL sweep of debt. They could just randomly choose to eliminate debt for whatever political reason they have for anyone they want. Then the liberals are going to blame the corporations and big banks for not loaning out money and hurting the poor people

+1

Most people have neither the intellect nor the dilligence to learn & recognize such far-reaching economic consequences, that's why world is so full of tyranny; most people are short-sighted & we don't have a fair system, not because some handful of "elites" are stopping it but because most people don't want a fair system, they want a favored system, specifically, a system that benefits them at the expense of others, & that's what creates the structures that lead to tyranny as people concede power for favors, otherwise world would a lot more freer

what about all those investors who have their retirement fund invested in "risk free" government debt?

F'ck investors! Who needs savers & investors! Didn't Keynes already prove that capital can be created out of thin air so we can have prosperity without savers & investors!

I have no debt to be forgiven...maybe I should get some

Yes, definitely, when you can get stuff cheaply & get your debt forgiven then what's the point of working & saving!

Is this a joke? Debt forgiveness? Really?

That means a lot of people aren't getting paid and a lot of businesses going out of business. It's why Europe has been propping up little Greece for years. If they default the ripple effect is MASSIVE. It could cause a world wide economic collapse because their debts are tangled into many industries - other countries, banking, pensions, IMF, ECB, etc.

The BEST thing to do is not bail out anything or anyone. When you do bailouts or debt forgiveness, you create this entitlement to do things wrong/bad all over again.

+1

Again, is the world intelligent or dilligent enough to learn & understand such far-reaching economic consequences? I don't think so! As soon as one government does it, even partially, there will be demands from freeloaders elsewhere to do the same & governments will have to cave in & that in itself will destroy the whole system; I hope it doesn't happen but as Einstein had said, stupidity is infinite

[NoOneButPaul]

BS. The people who own all the debt are the very folks who are in power, and least likely to give up their power.

This.

/thread