Yes. We will all be burdened with debt but it does not have to happen this way. Simply stop taking on debt. Stop using credit cards and live within our means.
No doubt there is excessive credit floating in the system and that will need to be reined in. One can even say the system itself is crazy and needs to be changed. But there are options on how to go about doing it. One can let the house catch fire and burn to the ground then start from scratch or one can choose to remodel. One can choose to file for bankruptcy or alternatively try to inject new capital and reorganize and develop a debt restructuring plan. When someone is sick and unproductive do you say let the sickness run its course or do you pony up and go to the doctor and spend on medicine? On the specifics of this particular financial disaster, it probably wouldn't be so bad if the risks involved with derivatives were better understood, the leverage you speak of wasn't allowed to be so high, and more sensible regulation was in place. The numbers really only started getting incredibly big from the time Glass-Steagall was repealed.
Yeah, I'm not blaming them for the emotion: I'm just saying that I wish that it could be seen by every avg. joe in the US, but minus that emotion so that they wouldn't be resistant to the facts. On gold and silver: I've always said that a gold/silver standard is the only thing that makes sense, because the gold/silver supply is finite. But then you have this problem: The population of the earth is increasing. While the supply of gold doesn't change, its relative value would, since the ratio of gold-to-people would be decreasing. This would cause deflation, as the value of the money increased with each new mouth to feed on the planet. In that scenario, all you'd have to do to increase your wealth is <i>hoard</i> it; the longer you held it, the more it would be worth in time. There would be no reason to spread your wealth around, as hoarding it would be the surest way to increase it. How to solve that problem?
Tinkering with the System, won't work. The fundamental construct the system is based - debt = money - has to change.
No way. I'm sure you can figure it out the gist of it. Just understand that it was a small group of families (possibly interbred) who have been generalized to a large group of people. Send me a PM if u want.
Then offer the solution. What I see is a lot of complaints by people who don't seem to get a lot of the pros and cons of the various systems that have been tried. If you don't like the current system suggest the superior alternative and explain why it might work. Remember though you might end up with far worse. A lot of the appeal of communism after all is because of the weaknesses in capitalism.
Problem with gold and now, silver, is that the supply is controlled. Gold was controlled by the bankers & elite royal families long before America as a nation was founded. The Money Masters goes into it and why they prefer silver as a solution. Now, even Silver is dominated by a small group. Regarding the ratio of gold/silver-to-people, that's not a big issue. "The Mystery of Banking" discusses this, it's an interesting concept. Gold & silver are scare, malleable, divisible and storable. Prices & wages will always adjust in proportion. But then comes the manipulation by the banksters. Take note that even though the bankers controlled most of the gold, they still pushed hard to get off the gold standard. Even with such manipulation, their power was limited as opposed to pure fiat. What they really feared was silver, because it was scattered. Logically, you would use both, gold for higher denominations, silver for lower. Something to think about.
Why don't you get your head out of the gutter and research. Mises institute offers a number of solutions, so does the Cato Journal. So does Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, etc. even if the solutions are flawed. People have and do. They start barter systems. They move to gold & silver coins. In colonial days, they used scrip, which is actually fiat but it is interest free community money that the PEOPLE control not a private banking cartel. It does not get much worse than the current system. Or are you keeping urself locked in a gated community while ignoring what is going on in the nation, let alone the world. How ironic when a Centralized Banking & Monetary system is one of the key points of the Communist Manifesto.
So, even if the supply were not controlled, it would still be finite, and that's where the problem (that I described) comes in. So, "The Mystery of Banking" (I don't know what that is, but I'll look it up) goes into this problem? I'd be interested to hear what they say, because it seems like a pretty fundamental problem. I'd like to think that there was a solution. Gross overpopulation of course, is itself a problem, and maybe it's just antithetical to having a sound, sane money system (like gold) in the first place. Without the gold standard, the bankers found their "magic" much easier to practice, and found it easier to take people's gold and give them paper debt in return.