Ever Wonder Why People Who Live with Huge Debts Don't Rise Up or Even Protest?

The new American and Canadian way of life is lifelong indebtedness. Almost all N. Americans have very little savings and are deeply in debt. They are free to work at whatever job they can find at whatever wage it pays to pay taxes or pay off car loans, mortgages, credit cards, charge accounts etc. but is that really freedom? Do you think all these millions of folks decided back in high school that their dream was to become first voluntary debt addicts, then transmogrify into debt slaves and finally debt zombies?

How did it happen? How did the dreams of so many turn into a nightmare of clogged freeway commutes while dressed high heels and ties and praying that the next equity loan on the house gets approved before the repo men, collection agents and bankruptcy lawyers appear. The young dreamers first wrong turn on the highway to happiness came when they took out their first student loan. Debt never sleeps, it's the ultimate four letter word.

Over-consumption and consumer debt are addictions. Debt addicts follow the same behavioral sequence as all addicts. Neither the junkie nor the bankrupted consumer became an addict the first time he/she tried drugs or takes the first loan. But they both got what they thought was a Free Lunch and, just like the fish, they took the worm but refused to look at what it was tied to. Out of the freedom of the river and into the frying pan but unlike the fish who still fights for his freedom consumers are so brainwashed, so myopically materialist, so fearful of the flame they won't attempt to jump from the frying pan in the hope of recapturing their freedom.

Debt is insidious. Debt steals our freedom as well as our tranquility. The more stuff a person collects the more enslaved they are by that stuff. The more a person has, whether it's on credit or not, the more that person believes s/he has to lose and the easier s/he becomes to push around. Those cultured beliefs and fears are a noose just as much as the debts are. They form a veil that blocks out the bright light of self-determination. "A veil that," as Tom Robbins says, "if even briefly parted, reveals a glare to bright for many."

Despite the fact that since 2008  there have been 7 million foreclosures in the U.S. there are still 9 million homeowners seriously underwater on their mortgages who continue to swim like a stone while clinging to the belief they'll somehow escape the clutches of interest. To get some idea of what interest is and how the evil genius of the private banking system created an economy where 35-45 cents of every dollar spent goes to cumulative interest i suggest you read Ellen Brown's Web of Debt. For an excellent historical lesson i suggest David Graeber’s 'Debt:The First 5,000 Years' [free book or pdf download here].

Then there's that outspoken thorn in the side of the Empire Max Keiser, who, along with the incredibly intelligent Stacey Herbert, produce The Keiser Report three times a week on Russian Television and free circulation on YouTube. Today's episode [embedded below] discusses how with a university education leaves most students today so heavily in debt that combined with the tumbling starting salaries in all fields they, like all folks who live debt slavery lives, don't protest like earlier generations did and they don't rise up. Max and Stacey conclude it's much more convenient for the Empire that way.