Posted on 03/11/2005 9:27:36 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
Years ago, this country did away with debtors prisons. The nation in general, and poor people in particular, would be well served to bring them back. The harm to business from unpaid debt, and the reduced productivity and even business failure unpaid debt can bring, is obvious. Businesses or individuals who are not repaid the money they loaned or who are not paid for the goods or services they produced and sold on credit are prevented from accumulating needed and even expected capital for expansion, and they are frequently thrown into serious financial constraints making it hard to pay their own creditors and employees. This not only can theoretically choke the gross national product, many recessions and even the Great Depression have been in fact brought on at least partly by unpaid debt.
But debt relief measures, either in the form of actual debt forgiveness or in the form of relaxed procedures to collect debt (including the abolition of debtors prisons), are generally thought to help the poor. The idea that once again forcing poor people into involuntary servitude to pay for meager food and shelter is certainly a tough sell. But here goes.
A return to debtors prisons would help poor people in at least five ways: 1) increasing workforce participation; 2) increasing personal responsibility; 3) making it easier for the poor to climb the economic ladder through entrepreneurship; 4) reintroduction of the virtues which have proven the only reliable way of the poor to leave poverty; 5) making credit more readily available.
(Excerpt) Read more at jesbeard.com ...
Sevry is looking for a core of "fairness" in a system where none exists. As my mother used to say, "Poor baby, did someone go and tell you that life was fair?"
You can't debate here from abject weakness and no knowledge of a topic and expect that someone is just going to continue to bloody spoon-feed you.Debating you,is akin to debating a precocious 5 year old. Sorry,but that is neither pleasurable,not interesting.
But I'll be a bit kind and give you a quickly answer of sorts.........
This isn't the same nation it was in 1780,nor even 1880.People used to starve to death.People died at an early age. there were fewer people.There were roaming gangs of bums,numbering in the tens of thousands,who traipsed across this nation and leaving their families to starve at home,in the depressions of the 1870s and 1873-98.
Many ethnic groups formed social/philanthropic societies,which actually had programs ( unemployment insurance,pensions for widows and orphans,and burial costs ) that were replaced by governmental programs. None of that exists now.
You can't just eliminate something like Social Security,tomorrow,for example.THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mortgage rates have already gone up.
It's difficult to give away property that nobody wants...it has no value.
I refuse to talk about this any more. It's not just N.Y.C. and California and some suburbs prices that are insane. Lots and lots of places have absolutely insane prices and real estate prices and houses and apartments go up and down and always shall. Oh yes,and EVERBODY has always said : " I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF TODAY ARE GONNA MAKE IT."
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!
I, and you, and the other guy. But there is conscience. There is morality.
Any author in particular? And I suspect I still won't see things your way. I've said this to you a few times, already. We may agree to disagree.
You're just repeating what I wrote, in previous messages. I think you simply wish to be contentious, to be disagreeable.
Your hypotheticals and suppositions and UTOPIAN mewlings don't really have anything at all to do with reality.
I'll make a book list and send it vis FREEPmail.
Jes Beard is a freakin' lunatic.
I am NOT posting just to be "disagreeable". As a matter of fact,I'm not being "disagreeable" at all! I'm posting factual historical information,all of which you have ignored out of hand.
WHY ARE YOU IGNORING THE FACTS ?
Maybe a better question would be : WHY AM I EVEN BOTHERING WITH YOU?
You've refused to tell me your age,but perhaps you will do us all the honor to tell us if you ever owned a business,have a degree in economics and/or business, and just WHY you think that the 1930s were a "norm" for business practices.
You have never studied history or economic and you don't know your math. Price wise things have never been cheaper.
Food prices are held artificially high but are still lower then they were. I am sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.
I used to read old magazine's such as Reader's Digest from the fifties and sixties. It gives you a whole different perspective on what was going on when you read what was happening as it happened.
You've created some straw man in your mind, rather than read a word of what I've written. I've not going to keep repeating myself. We're going to just have to agree to disagree.
The numbers I mentioned were scalars, for housing prices. But if you want a factor of increase, figure an order of magnitude and then some. Have wages increased an order of magnitude?
Maybe those 'golden parachute' packages - Franklin Raines, and such. Maybe them. But many others?
I have created nothing;let alone a straw-man argument. I have stated facts,quoted your own words, and it is not a simple case of "agree to disagree",when you are NOT saying anything valid nor credible. Wake up,take off your blinders,and look at reality for a change.
2004 Average US Annual Salary; $36,764
Increase by factor of twelve.
$10.00 buying power in 1950 equals $78.38 buying power 2004.
Increase by a factor of eight.
You do the math.
Read what I wrote - in context. Read the whole thing. I know you can do it.
a straw-man argument
That it is. Read what I wrote, instead. Because otherwise, why single me out? Why address it to me? If you want to address it to me, then address the things I specifically wrote. Fair?
I have a books which not only give prices of things,during various years and I am now going to post from them.
In the 1920s, the average yearly salary was $1,236.00.
The PRIME RATE was 5.4%.
Eggs cost 68 cents the dozen, milk was 17 cents a quart, bread was 12 cents a loaf.
In the 1950s, the average yearly salary was $2,992.00.
The PRIME RATE was 1.5%.
Eggs cost 72 cents the dozen, milk was 21 cents a quart, bread was 14 cents a loaf.
Now,let's throw in the 1930s.............
The average yearly salary was $1,368.00.
The PRIME RATE was 3.6%.
Eggs cost 44 cents the dozen, milk was 14 cents a quart, bread was 9 cents a loaf.
These prices are all averages.I have old magazines and very old newspapers,which I love to read and would be happy to post from them as well;which would give a more regional and pertinent year price.
Look at the figures I just posted.
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