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DEBT
"AARP
strongly opposes these proposals [to divert Social Security
payroll taxes to private accounts]. Private accounts in
place of Social Security are risky, expensive to administer,
and require huge increases in the federal debt. AARP believes
there are better and more responsible ways to strengthen
the system. To compensate for the loss of Social Security
revenue sent into private accounts, the federal government
would have to borrow significant sums for the next several
decades in order to continue to pay promised benefits to
currently retiring beneficiaries. One prominent proposal
would require $1 billion in the first 10 years the private
accounts were in place. Then, $3.5 trillion would be needed
in the following decade. Younger workers would have to bear
much of the burden for paying this debt. That's not right,
and it's not fair to them. Social Security is an insurance
program, not an investment program. The essence of Social
Security is that it has always been risk-free for all of
us. It's also inflation-proof - something neither investments,
nor even many pensions, can guarantee. Private accounts
within Social Security would add a large measure of personal
risk. AARP has publicly stated many times that there are
places in retirement planning that are appropriate for taking
risks, such as 401(k) plans, Individual Retirement Accounts,
and mutual funds, but they should be in addition to the
guarantee of Social Security."
-- AARP
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millions
of our fellow human beings continue to live as contemporary
slaves, victims of abominable practices like human
trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation.
Countless children are forced to become soldiers,
work in sweat shops or are sold by desperate families.
Women are brutalized and traded like commodities.
Entire households and villages labour under debt bondage.
-- Ban
Ki-moon
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You
can't build hospitals or schools, you can't spend
money educating or immunizing your people, whilst
there is this burden of debt sitting on your head.
It effects the lives of about a billion people who
are living on less than a dollar a day. We're trying
to get them a fresh start... It is a moral as well
as economic imperative that we come to their aid right
now... That's what we're asking for these poorest
nations of the world - Give them a fresh start. Cancel
those old debts. Let them get up off their knees and
take care of themselves...
-- Bono
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A
huge part of our power came from our moral authority
... the moral issue of debts as being killers of millions
of poor people around the world...I think our power
is also rooted in our intellectual power. I think
there are a lot of strong leaders around the world
who have made very convincing arguments about the
weakness of corporate-led globalization and the compelling
nature of alternatives.
-- John
Cavanagh
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“Simply
put, unsustainable debt is helping to keep too many
poor countries and poor people in poverty.”
~ Bill
Clinton
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The
debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay
to the future.
-- Abigail
Duniway |
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To
the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude,
when it is not in our power to repay it.
-- Benjamin
Franklin |
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"If
you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow,
perhaps in one hundred years, but you will be helped.
Nature must pay off the debt...It is a mathematical
law and all life is mathematics."
-- Gurdjieff
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“When
you get in debt you become a slave.” -- Andrew Jackson
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If
you look internationally over the last 50 years there
have been improvements in the third world, but in
the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt
crises and increased poverty.
-- David
Korten
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*
"We
must work to repeal trade agreements that impede access
to affordable generic drugs. We must work to cause
the IMF and the World Bank to reduce and eventually
eliminate the debt that takes poor nations' resources
away from crises like AIDS. We must focus America's
leadership on addressing and ending this epidemic."
-- Dennis
Kucinich
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Multinational
companies now run water systems for 7 per cent of the world's
population, and analysts say that figure could grow to 17
per cent by 2015. Private water management is estimated
to be a $200 billion business, and the World Bank, which
has encouraged governments to sell off their utilities to
reduce public debt, projects it could be worth $1 trillion
by 2021. The potential for profits is staggering: in May
2000 Fortune magazine predicted that water is about to become
'one of the world's great business opportunities', and that
'it promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the
20th'.
-- John Louma
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"Of
course I am frustrated with regard to extreme poverty,
to violence that never seems to cease. Greed is the
key. It’s easy to sit in relative luxury and peace and
pontificate on the subject of the Third World debts.
Not many of us are willing to give up everything we
have. We can however give some, and millions of people
do, governments do, but there is so much more to be
done."
-- Sir
Roger Moore |
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Debt
is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing
and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt
the people.
-- Wendell
Phillips
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Worrying
is like paying on a debt that may never come due. -- Will
Rogers
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"This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which
is being built but is by no means completed--a structure
intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions,
to act as a protection to future administrations of
the Government against the necessity of going deeply
into debt to furnish relief to the needy--a law to flatten
out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation--in
other words, a law that will take care of human needs
and at the same time provide for the United States an
economic structure of vastly greater soundness."
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt (August 14, 1935) |
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In
order more deeply to affect the minds of the citizens
of the United States with the blessings of peace, by
contrasting them with the evils of war, let the following
inscriptions be painted upon the sign which is placed
over the door of the War Office: 1. An office for butchering
the human species. 2. A Widow and Orphan making office.
3. A broken bone making office. 4. A Wooden leg making
office. 5. An office for the creating of public and
private vices. 6. An office for creating a public debt.
7. An office for creating speculators, stock Jobbers,
and Bankrupts. 8. An office for creating famine. 9.
An office for creating pestilential diseases. 10. An
office for creating poverty, and the destruction of
liberty, and national happiness. -- Benjamin
Rush |
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The
time has come to end this charade. The debts are unaffordable.
If they won't cancel the debts I would suggest obstruction;
you do it yourselves. Africa should say: 'thank you
very much but we need this money to meet the needs
of children who are dying right now so we will put
the debt servicing payments into urgent social investment
in health, education, drinking water, control of AIDS
and other needs.'
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
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People
should watch out for three things: avoid a major addiction,
don't get so deeply into debt that it controls your life,
and don't start a family before you're ready to settle down.
-- James Taylor
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Read
The BETTER
WORLD BOOK
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