Craig

“Proclaiming Clean Slates to restore economic balance – annulling the accumulation of debts when they grew beyond the ability to be paid – kept pre-Roman civilization financially stables. Mosaic Law placed this principle at the core of Jewish religion (Leviticus 25). Yet modern Christianity all but ignores the fact that in Jesus’s first sermon (Luke 4) he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and announced his mission to proclaim the Year of the Lord, as the Jubilee Year was known. Restoring the Jubilee Year became the basis for early Christians to break away from Rabbi Hillel, whose prosbul clause was used by creditors to force debtors to waive their rights to a Clean Slate. Jesus’s position – reflected also in the Dead Sea scrolls of the Essenes – prompted the wealthy establishment to fight so strongly against him.”
― Michael Hudson, Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy

“this sounds like a Ponzi scheme it is because it is the mother of all Ponzi schemes. A merry go around of Ponzi Austerity which, interestingly, left both the insolvent banks and the insolvent Greek state a little more… insolvent”
― Michael Hudson, Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy

“In place of classical political economy, today’s foundation myth is that all income and wealth is earned productively – as if there were no economic rent (unearned income) as a legacy of feudalism’s rentier privileges, and no inherited wealth or insider giveaways. Yet these have been the shaping forces of history. That is why they were the focal point of classical political economy – to free society from such privileges and bias. A society’s analytic concepts determine the kind of reality it creates. That is why parasites start by taking control of their host’s brain.”
― Michael Hudson, Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy

“Chapter 7 has shown that banking was on its way to becoming a public utility in the years leading up to World War I. A public option survives in the Post Office banks of Japan and Russia. By providing deposit and checking accounts, loans and credit cards at rates reflecting the actual cost of such services (or even at subsidized rates instead of today’s interest charges, fees and penalties), a public option could free the economy from the monopoly rent now enjoyed by banks. Most important, public banking would have been unlikely to extend credit for the corporate takeovers, asset stripping and debt leveraging that characterizes today’s financial system.”
― Michael Hudson, Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy