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 ...
And don't develop any serious illnesses.
That is very true,dont get sick.
But that is what we do now.
We already have these things that discourage layoff. They are called unions and they make it nearly impossible to fire lazy layabouts or rewards the productive. The end results is that everybody loses their job as the company either folds or moves away.
And now you want to give them even more incentive to do this. Somehow I don't think you have thought this through.
Then I call bull. There is no such thing as a living wage. People will not control their spending.
You want people to have money? Then they must learn how to handle money. Wages have little to do with that. Michael Jackson is a case in point.
...my guess is you owe money.
Sick, but mildly amusing.
"....``At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ``it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''
``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''
``Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'' returned the gentleman, ``a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
``Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.
``You wish to be anonymous?''
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.'' ....."
As long as we're bringing back Victorian anachronisms, can we bring back the bustle? Hot chicks with bustles! Yeeee-ha!
But I know a lot of co-workers that are in that situation. One came by my office to talk about the $3,000.00 she had just spent on camera equipment. The next week she was talking about how she was so broke she had to borrow money from her parents to buy a tank of gas. The kicker is that she knows how to handle money but she chooses not to.
Her motto is, "I want it. Gimmme!"
Oh, yeah. And, of course,
the SI swimsuit issue
will get a revamp . . .
Work will free you?
I work out three times a week to have a pleasantly shaped backside. I am not putting on a bustle!
You like them so much you wear one.:)
Yeah. That little phrase
was on the gate leading to
Auschwitz. It was first
Dachau's motto, then
became used by almost all
Nazi "labor" camps.
You know, technically,
some Freeper could enforce the
picture rule on this . . .
The Band
"The harm to business from unpaid debt"
What about the massive billions business write off in their bankruptcies and the financial damage the executives who run these companies into the ground while getting millions in "bonuses" cause?
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