Conversations w/ Great Minds - Dr. David Graeber Debt: The 1st 5000 years P1

Dr. David Graeber, professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London on his book - Debt: The First 5000 years. How the concepts of debt and credit have defined human history and what this means for our current credit crisis and the future of our economy.

• Category

  News & Politics

[homoeroticfood]

Think about this: there are just as many houses now as there were before the crisis and just as many people who need to be housed. An efficient market would be able to house everyone. So why hasn't it been able to do so? Why are banks kicking people out of houses? The banks have in effect lumbered unecessarily excessive debt on people, and, therefore, on the market as whole. People are paying $500,000 debts for things which are now worth only $300,000. The banks need to accept that mortgage

[NoName NoFame]

we actually do not have capitalism - especially not since the Fed started to control monetary policy and money supply

banks are fed by the Fed so that they are now "too big to fail" and bailed out to the tune of trillions dollars does not spell out capitalism

as they say, capitalism without bankruptcies is like christianity without hell

[rbc13183]

And anthropology hates you too. :)

[Akin42]

You have a total misunderstanding of history based on lies.

Social government programs don't exist for the direct recipient, they exist for the landlord/capitalist class. They are payoffs so joe worker thinks his livelihood comes from govt and business instead of the his own work. They exist to convince people that they need bosses and government. Once workers realize that their bosses need them (not vise versa), and that government exists to protect corporate thugs, they'll ditch both.

[Hororscope Bladefist]

Well that depends on how you define an "entitlement program" and your using a rather distorted definition. Take medicare and social security out of that equation (which many polls show conservatives as being opposed to cutting) and the "entitlement programs" dont dwarf military spending at all, in fact the military spending becomes bigger than tese so called "entitlement programs". I'd almost rather have someone not look at the numbers at all than try to distort them to push their agenda.

[Giorgi Alvarez]

I hate anthropology

[Jante Op]

and your point?

[Judge Fudge]

The difference is the "Entitlement Programs" come with separate funding. Through my job, I not only pay about 22% of my income in taxes, but I pay more than 12% for Social Security and Medicare. I dispute the term "Entitlement" because getting what I pay for is not entitlement.  Entitlement is expecting something for simply who or what you are.

[NoName NoFame]

I wonder if this guy actually looked at the government budget

and looked at the numbers - as much as we spend on the military, the entitlement programs dwarf the military spending.

most liberals never actually look at the numbers and cannot see past their dogmatism.