Quotes About Debt

Todos los estados-nación modernos están construidos sobre la base del gasto deficitario. La deuda se ha erigido en tema central de la política internacional. Pero nadie parece saber exactamente qué es ni qué pensar de ella.

Paper money was debt money, and debt money was war money, and this has always remained the case.

If taxes represent our absolute debt to the society that created us, then the first step toward creating real money comes when we start calculating much more specific debts to society, systems of fines, fees, and penalties, or even debts we owe to specific individuals who we have wronged in some way, and thus to whom we stand in a relation of "sin" or

Civilization' came as a package. It meant misery and suffering for some (since some would inevitably be reduced to serfs, slaves or debt peons), but also allowed for the possibility of philosophy, art and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. The evidence no longer suggests anything of the sort.

If we have become a debt society, it is because the legacy of war, conquest, and slavery has never completely gone away.

If history shows anything, it is that there's no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it's the victim who's doing something wrong. Mafiosi understand this. So do the commanders of conquering armies.

A man, being born, is a debt; by his own self he is born to Death

In fact, the earliest word for 'freedom' recorded in any human language is the Sumerian term ama(r)-gi, which literally means 'return to mother' - because Sumerian kings would periodically issue decrees of debt freedom, cancelling all non-commercial debts and in some cases allowing those held as debt peons in their creditors' households to return home to their kin.

It is no coincidence that the new phase of American debt imperialism has also been accompanied by the rise of the evangelical right, who—in defiance of almost all previously existing Christian theology—have enthusiastically embraced the doctrine of "supply-side economics," that creating money and effectively giving it to the rich is the most Biblically appropriate way to bring about national prosperity.

Throughout most of history, when overt political conflict between classes did appear, it took the form of pleas for debt cancellation—the freeing of those in bondage and, usually, a more just reallocation of the land.

The chief cause of bankruptcy in America is catastrophic illness; most borrowing is simply a matter of survival (if one does not have a car, one cannot work); and for most, simply being able to go to college now means debt peonage for at least half of one's subsequent working life.36 Still, it is useful to point out that for real human beings survival is rarely enough. Nor should it be.

If history shows anything, it is that there's no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it's the victim who's doing something wrong.

As it turns out, we don't "all" have to pay our debts. Only some of us do.

For me, this is exactly what's so pernicious about the morality of debt: the way that financial imperatives constantly try to reduce us all, despite ourselves, to the equivalent of pillagers, eyeing the world simply for what can be turned into money -- and then tell us that it's only those who are willing to see the world as pillagers who deserve access to the resources required to pursue anything in life other than money.

Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began "comparing power with power, measuring, calculating" and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt.

Vous prêtez de l'argent aux deux antagonistes afin de financer la guerre, et vous leur prêtez encore plus pour la reconstruction de leurs pays dévastés. Ils deviennent endettésface à vous (contrôle) et vous augmentez votre richesse (pouvoir).

We are born in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness, the coming annihilation not only of the body and the mind but also, seemingly, of the world.

In salvation, God both declares us guilty and pays our debt. Only he can satisfy his own requirements. A savior less than God would be disqualified; God must do it himself.

As mercy is God's goodness confronting human misery and guilt, so grace is his goodness directed toward human debt and demerit.

If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.

I didn't ask to be born, and I don't owe God anything.

When we realize how great a debt we owe to God, we become willing servants, eager to be poured out for God and His Kingdom.

The advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god attained so far, was therefore accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth.

A PERSON WHO CANNOT FORGIVE HAS FORGOTTEN HOW GREAT A DEBT GOD HAS FORGIVEN THEM.