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TOPIC: public debt

Economy

France, Portrait Of A Nation In Denial — In Our World In Denial

The continuous increase of public debt and a tone-deaf president in France, the rise of authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world, the blindness to global warming: realities that we do not want to see and that will end up destroying us if we do not act.

-Analysis-

PARIS — In France, the denial of reality seems to be the only thing that all of our public figures have in common: The president (who is right to say that it is his role to propose unpopular measures) refuses to see that other solutions than his own were possible and that institutions will not be sufficient in the long term to legitimize his solitary decisions.

The parliamentary opposition groups refuse to see that they do not constitute a political majority, since they would be incapable of governing together and that they have in common, for too many of them, on both sides of the political spectrum, left and right, only the hatred of money, the mistrust of success, and the contempt for excellence.

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The Ancient Art Of Debt Relief, A Brief History

Owing, it would seem, is a part of the human experience, and not just in modern times ... and so is debt forgiveness.

-Essay-

Debt is as old as history. When humans began to invent writing and thus emerge from prehistory, some 5,000 years ago, they quickly used it to keep track of loans, with their outstanding amounts, their rules and ... their cancellations. The oldest known legal text in the world, the Code of Hammurabi, engraved nearly 4,000 years ago and still visible in the Louvre Museum, states that "the creditor may not take barley from the debtor's house without his consent."

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