David Graeber on the Occupy Wall Street Protest & Forgiving Debt of the American Poor

DemocracyNow.org - As President Obama prepares to outline a deficit-reduction plan that includes tax increases, as well as cuts to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, anthropologist David Graeber proposes a radical solution: cancel the debt of the nation's poor. "Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history. They are not anything set in stone," says Graeber, author of "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," on Democracy Now! today. "It's generally speaking when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich, debts becomes a sacred situation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable." On the Occupy Wall Street protest, Graeber says, "If you look at who showed up [in Egypt and Spain], it was mostly young people, and most of them were people who had gone through the educational system who were deeply in debt and who found it completely impossible to find jobs. ... The system has completely failed them ... If there's going to be any kind of society worth living in, we're going to have to create it ourselves."

For the complete transcript, to download the podcast, or for additional Democracy Now! reports about the U.S. financial crisis, visit http://www.democracynow.org/

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[tstruss912]

A flat tax is stupid, same with a sales tax. They would turn this country into something like Mexico.

[Christ724]

Actually, let's end both

[bootleg42]

So do Democrats. Obama has pushed (and he has made) cuts that are unnecessary in order to make Wall St happy.

Both parties want the U.S. to have a third world country model.

[Benedict Brunker]

Republicans want to turn us into a third world oligarchy.

[InstantKarma376]

The Fed is essentially a part of Wall St.

[ohthehorror1234]

David Graeber is a wonderful human being!

[AstroMonsterOh6]

If stealing from your employees makes a job creator, then surely stealing from anywhere else does as well. Cops need jobs too, people.

QUICK! EVERYBODY SHOPLIFT!

[Skibum Willy]

In “Inheriting an Abundant Earth” a simple rule tweak on inheritance ends up changing the direction and purpose of modern human life! Here’s a fair way to give the 99% the key to the vaults! It's something specific we can demand. Are we really just this close to having it work right? Break one link, and the chains fall away! Oh yeah, it's a Ski movie! Watch “Inheriting an Abundant Earth” (“Occupying Chairlifts” 5.0) then sign the petition, and share it!!

[cogitheum]

Taxes have SOMETHING to do with it. Namely, progressive taxes on the rich force them to reinvest which creates jobs. The absence of such taxes incentivizes what is called "saving" by the rich if you like it or "hoarding" if you don't like it.

[chasbo13]

If the protestors really thought there was something wrong with american capitalism and investments, they would have protested in 1998 or 1994 when they had money.

They are actuallly protesting to serve themselves not the system. Its sour grapes.

prosperity is cyclical, you knew that. quit whining because you got a bad hand, it happends to us all.

[KhagarBalugrak]

I have to say, OWS is the only political movement in America with an encompassing and uncompromising moral vision that could heal America and the world. It is a movement based on justice and love.

[Max Power]

#OO