The Debt-Peonage Society

[BBond]

Originally posted by: JEDI


what is a 'sharecroppers' society?

Sharecropper
A farmer who works a farm owned by someone else. The owner provides the land, seed, and tools exchange for part of the crops and goods produced on the farm.


Sharecroppers were poor farmers who didn't own land. They lived on parcels doled out by farmers who owned land. They farmed the land and hoped for a good enough crop to feed their families and earn a few extra dollars.

Some landowners would allow their sharecroppers to accumulate debt and at the end of the harvest would tell them their crop didn't cover the debt. That led to more debt incurred to farm the land in hopes that next year's crop would be better.

It's just as the lenders descried above are doing to debtor nations. You never get out of the hole as your resources, whether the sharecroppers' crops or the debtor nations' resources, are taken in an ever increasing debt spiral.

 

[conjur]

But...but...but...Americans have record wealth
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/sto...871942&dt=20050310120500&w=RTR&coview=


At least until the stock markets tank a bit or housing prices start dropping with the inevitable rise in interest rates.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: conjur
But...but...but...Americans have record wealth
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/sto...871942&dt=20050310120500&w=RTR&coview=


At least until the stock markets tank a bit or housing prices start dropping with the inevitable rise in interest rates.

:laugh:

Bill Gates just walked into the room.

I wonder how that record wealth balances with the 11% increase in debt reported in the article that Americans carried in 2004?

 

[ciba]

Originally posted by: BBond
BTW, those same credit card companies are run by banks who were bailed out by the same taxpayers they now want to deny a bail out to.

Care to tell me which major credit card player was bailed out?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: BBond

Originally posted by: conjur
But...but...but...Americans have record wealth
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/sto...871942&dt=20050310120500&w=RTR&coview=


At least until the stock markets tank a bit or housing prices start dropping with the inevitable rise in interest rates.

:laugh:

Bill Gates just walked into the room.

I wonder how that record wealth balances with the 11% increase in debt reported in the article that Americans carried in 2004?

Long-term investments are a good thing but it appears that Americans' short-term liquidity is dire.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: ciba

Originally posted by: BBond
BTW, those same credit card companies are run by banks who were bailed out by the same taxpayers they now want to deny a bail out to.

Care to tell me which major credit card player was bailed out?

During the Reagan/Bush administration the entire Savings&Loan industry was bailed out. At the time there was very little in the news about it. The news media actually said the Savings&Loan scandal, which cost American taxpayers several hundred billion dollars, IIRC, was too complex for average Americans to understand.

I'll Google it and see if I can come up with specific banks. One that I'm certain of was Silverado Savings which George W. Bush's brother Neil was involved in the collapse of -- to the tune of $1 billion.

But we don't hear anything about that.

 

[BBond]

Just Google "savings and loan scandal rtc" (Resolution Trust Corporation) and you'll get all the hits you could ever want.

Also Google "silverado neil bush" for some real eye openers.