
A debt jubilee is the only way to avoid a depression - dredmorbius
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/21/debt-jubilee-is-only-way-avoid-depression/
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WheelsAtLarge
I'm someone that has never borrowed money long term. I have credit cards but I
pay them off at the end of the month. I have zero debt. A debt jubilee would
be very unfair to all of us who don't like and don't have debt.

But these are extreme circumstances under very hard times so I am 100% for
debt forgiveness. If we don't the payment of debt will suck up most of the
available money and there will be little for the overall economy. I dought
that we would go into a depression since the government safety net would go
into effect. We are starting to see it now. But growth will come to a crawl
and stagflation will show its ugly face as production slows and the money
supply increases. Also, companies will start to layoff workers due to a lack
of consumer demand and make matters worse. The social aspects of unemployment
might even be worse than the pandemic itself.

I also see nationalism increasing and leading to the destabilization of many
governments.

We need to get past the fairness aspect and know that if we are selfish we
will all lose in the long term. This is the time for debt forgiveness.

The way to get past the feeling of unfairness is to have the federal reserve
buy a huge chunk of the debt and forgive it outright or have people pay it
with zero interest over a very long long term where it has little impact on
the household.

There are no easy answers but debt forgiveness is a good starting point.

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psadri
What about all the people who were responsible and managed their debt?

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muzani
I do contracting work. Many of my clients pay late, not so much because they
want to pay late, but because they have a lot of debt to juggle. They end up
taking loans, which messes up their cash flow and makes them prioritize paying
off banks over contractors.

So as a result, people end up owing me tens of thousands of dollars. I've
stopped contracting, because it was pointless to do this and not get paid, and
settled for a less productive, full time job. If people just had more money, I
think they could actually pay more.

We probably have to clamp down more on debt afterwards, though. It's only a
way for rich people to get richer. It would be ideal if banks acted like VCs
and shared the risk.

