IT'S THE END - DEBT OR FREEDOM?

As you probably know, our economy revolves around finance and debt. Debt is the act of promising your bank to pay back a sum of money you've created, along with the interest you've paid on it. Today, this money is digital (created at the push of a computer button).

In this article, let's imagine the worst possible scenario: if finance destroys itself, will it destroy the planet and the humanity that inhabits it?

Economists can't imagine an economy without finance. No economist questions the fact that our economy is essentially based on debt.

And yet, if all debt were canceled by presidential decree, our economy would collapse because over 90% of money is debt, through bank loans.

Our economy only holds together because individuals, corporations, and governments are in debt. This economy only holds together because the banks have a stranglehold on each and every one of us.

This debt is the concrete manifestation of finance's grip on the real economy. So should we question this debt-based currency?

As long as it's possible to get the masses into debt, to make them consume and work, the banks' business can continue. Debt money is limited only by our capacity to consume and our capacity to accept work to pay debts and bank interest.

These two limits can be translated into an ecological limit and a social limit. In other words, how far our planet can support our consumption, and how far workers can accept the burden of debt.

Even a worker with little debt can fall victim to this system because where debt is destroyed as it is repaid, bank interest remains. And when growth is weak, this interest, which doesn't create real wealth, dilutes everyone's purchasing power.

That's why the elites push us towards growth because it maintains purchasing power and automatically ensures social peace. At the same time, it allows the owners of capital and governments to extract and distribute a large part of growth through bank interest and various taxes.

An economy that can only survive on growth will sooner or later reach its ecological limits. The financial debt at the heart of our economy is transformed into ecological debt in the real world. Over time, this ecological debt swells to the point of creating an ecological bubble that could burst at any moment. So it would be logical to think that if finance doesn't destroy itself, it will destroy the world and the humanity that inhabits it.

What if there was an alternative solution? A solution to mitigate a possible ecological crisis that looms over us like a storm still at sea.

This solution would be to collectively adopt a currency whose growth is limited. A currency not in the hands of the banks. A currency at the service of all, a medium for real trade, not a fictitious currency for speculation.

You're thinking of a currency that is a construct of the mind and that could replicate the qualities of gold: a stable quantity that grows moderately over time, at the pace of nature and mankind.

Cryptocurrencies have attempted this feat but without the initiative of governments. It is possible to work on a transparent, independent, democratic, and ecological protocol.

If such a solution were to succeed, it would be up to the people to understand what's at stake and to put honest leaders at the heads of state who are willing to confront the powers of the old world and plan the gradual transition from debt money to new money.

Fortunately, all is well! Finance is too complex for most people to understand. There is no movement to turn our world upside down. It's easier to understand and respond to societal problems than to the perverse effects of central bank quantitative easing over the past fifteen years.

Our leaders can still divert our attention to religious conflicts or social promises to buy middle-class votes in the next election.

On the other hand, some will sit on the beach and watch the storm of the ecological crisis roll in, while preparing their umbrellas.