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Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#111
post #87
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to Democracy! :) As long as you can make fun of the politicians and not go to jail, things are nominal.

The problem is more that some of the politicians should go to jail, but don't.

Hmm. Perhaps the line can be drawn a little closer to the truth, but i'm happy with the bias toward false negatives over false positives.

In death penalty cases, when you'd expect the justice system to work its absolute best, 5% were overturned when DNA evidence became reliable. 1 in 20 on they way to die because of false positives.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#112
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's this crazy concept called "saving money" where you don't borrow from a bank but rather put some money aside every month to be able to afford something expensive Yeah. Unfortunately this only works if you have enough money after you pay the bills etc. to put aside.

Plus, saving up the 10-50 thousand dollars (say, to start a restaurant in the US) required to start a business would take a significant chunk of someone's working lifetime. To use a more concrete example, you can't make money weaving cloth when you can't afford a loom.

You're right, but undershooting it by a lot. $50k couldn't even open a Subway franchise in a really cheap location. And Subway has really cheap franchises. Most fast food restaurant franchises will have startup costs in the $250,000 to $3m range. (I use franchises because the numbers are easily available. Independent restaurants vary, and if you're doing an indie-feel coffee shop or hole-in-the-wall you might be able to swing $10k, but $100-200k is what you'll start at for the type of restaurant that might actually make money. Heck, your signage might cost $5k.)

The sort of capital needed for most businesses is beyond the ability of most people to save. For some businesses (like software or various types of personal services) you can pay a lot of sweat equity, but there's lots of other types that just plain need money capital. If you're just saving, most of these would be out of range for even the upper middle class.

Financing is even more important for business expansion. I can get a loan or raise money to buy equipment/rent space/hire people that'll let me expand my business to meet demand now. It'd take ten years to save that much from current profits.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#113
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to Democracy! :) As long as you can make fun of the politicians and not go to jail, things are nominal.

Yeah... the thing is, some of us have had a higher standard than that for generations and are now being sucked into the abyss of corruption under the flag of the EU.

FUD. Worse in fact - xenophobic FUD.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#114
Croat here: This is BS. They canceled peoples phone & other commodity debt. This is basically rewarding people for being financially irresponsible. I could have easily taken 5 phones on 2 year contracts, decided not to pay and gotten that written off with this law.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#115
post #92
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefits of saving vs. borrowing really depends on the situation, and it's possible that borrowing is actually more beneficial. Let's say I want to save money to buy a house, and I want to pay in cash (i.e., no mortgage). I estimate it will take me about 20 years to afford the house, so I start putting away money from my pay check. However, since I don't have a mortgage and thus no house to live in, I also have t…

Well to be fair, borrowing with interest works really well only in the presence of endless growth.

Not necessarily. Borrowing with interest also works in the presence of endless inflation; it does not necessarily need real growth.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#116
Let's just look at the predictable consequences of this move:

1) Banks and other corporations will never lend money to poor people again. Full stop. If there is a chance that the government will write off that debt (effectively stealing future earnings from banks) for these loans, banks just won't issue them. Say goodbye to educational loans, healthcare loans, car loans. Say goodbye to home loans and mortgages. If you're poor, you just became a ward of the state. And you thought being in debt was bad...

2) If a legitimate institution do want to lend money to poor people, interest rates will skyrocket to compensate for this additional government-cancellation risk. If they skyrocket above usury laws, then legitimate institutions will no longer be in the market and the job of lending at-risk capital will turn to the black market. Look out for loan sharks and indentured servitude, including sex slavery, on the rise in Croatia in the future.

3) The money has to come from somewhere--it isn't free. By canceling $31M in debt, the government is causing $31M in losses to corporations and institutions that were owed that money. That means $31M less in spending, economic growth, job creation, not to mention taxes, which will have to go up to compensate for the loss. These taxes (or inflation) will hit the poorest people while the rich horde more money or offshore it to prevent it being taken away.

4) Lending is the foundation of economic growth, especially for the poor, by allowing borrowers to leverage their limited assets in exchange for future earnings. All things being equal, people will borrow money smartly or stupidly, but the consequences, good or bad, are faced by the people who borrow. If the government cancels debt, it is incentivizing bad borrowing and making it harder for good borrowers to get the capital they need.

It's the worst kind of pandering to the voters with long-term destructive consequences to the people of Croatia.

In other words, exactly what you'd expect from politicians. Keep up the good work!

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#117
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow seem to equate debt with guilt. That is not what debt is, although lenders love it when you believe that. You also seem to think that the main reason people cannot pay of their debt is that they "smoked pot all day" - the notion of debt as guilt shines through here again. Debt is debt. Nothing else. It is not some moral failing if you cannot pay it back, it can have many reasons. And the idea that just be…

So here is another example. If I start a Kickstarter campaign and raise $100,000 from multiple backers and never deliver on the product but keep the money. Should I feel guilty? After all, it's just debt..right? Or does this only apply to "evil" bankers? If everyone had this thinking, nobody except the rich would get loans. As a bank, why would I ever loan someone money if they felt like they were entitled to it and…

I share your instincts, but need to defend the policies. It's important to have a bankruptcy mechanism. Otherwise it's a back-door mechanism to create slavery. By having a predictable bankruptcy regime, lenders can price in the probability of bankruptcy.

Limited liability is a similar issue. It would be convenient if we didn't have corporations and everybody conducted business as themselves. But the experience has been that the trade-off of limited-liability is worth it. You get more growth in a country with it than one without it.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#118

Let's just look at the predictable consequences of this move: 1) Banks and other corporations will never lend money to poor people again. Full stop. If there is a chance that the government will write off that debt (effectively stealing future earnings from banks) for these loans, banks just won't issue them. Say goodbye to educational loans, healthcare loans, car loans. Say goodbye to home loans and mortgages. If yo…

Unless I'm reading this wrong, isn't this good for banks? The gov't is paying the debts, not just declaring them gone. The banks get everything back.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#119

Let's just look at the predictable consequences of this move: 1) Banks and other corporations will never lend money to poor people again. Full stop. If there is a chance that the government will write off that debt (effectively stealing future earnings from banks) for these loans, banks just won't issue them. Say goodbye to educational loans, healthcare loans, car loans. Say goodbye to home loans and mortgages. If yo…

Unless I'm reading this wrong, isn't this good for banks? The gov't is paying the debts, not just declaring them gone. The banks get everything back.

No. The article points out that the lenders will not be reimbursed.

Re: Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens

#120
Something to consider; high-interest consumer debt is a public health problem. It travels with and exacerbates substance abuse, compulsive gambling and other social pathologies.

If we view it this way our current permissive attitude towards payday lenders and such is quite literally insane. The equivalent of allowing gonorrhea infested prostitutes to operate a brothel on Main st. that offers bareback specials.

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