Payback: Debt And the Shadow Side of Wealth (2014)
“How much more shadowy can you get? Quite a lot more, because it’s shadowiest just before it gets even shadowier. But never mind: I’m saving the hopeful stuff for the very end of this book. Just like Pandora.
The question I’ll try to address in this chapter is: What happens when people don’t pay their debts? Or can’t pay their debts? Or won’t pay their debts? What then? And, an extension of this question: What if the debt is one that by its very nature cannot be repaid with money?
I STARTED THINKING about the subject of debt for a number of reasons, but among them was my puzzlement over a turn of phrase — one you don’t hear very often any more, although you still do hear it. “He’s paid his debt to society,” it used to be said. “Crime does not pay,” we also used to say, optimistically thinking this meant that crime does not ultimately reward the criminal; whereas it might mean instead — pessimistically — that Crime skips town and stiffs you for his bills, the rotten deadbeat.
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