Roman Disaster Redux: Private Sector Collects Debts

The Daily Bell

10/5/2011

Obama seeks debt collector proposal … To the dismay of consumer groups and the discomfort of Democrats, President Barack Obama wants Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to call the cell-phones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other billions owed the federal government. The change “is expected to provide substantial increases in collections, particularly as an increasing share of households no longer have landlines and rely instead on cell-phones,” the administration wrote recently. – AP

One of the signals that Rome was failing was when the emperors began to use private debt collectors to harvest government taxes and fines. Once the private sector made common cause with the public sector, the velocity of mercantilism increased dramatically. Private enterprise, being efficient, married itself to the public purse and endless viciousness ensued.

That was then. This is now … but the patterns are unfortunately reoccurring. As Rome failed, the differentiation between what the public sector sought and the private sector could deliver increasingly blurred. Instead of creating viable and valuable enterprises, the private sector now created wealth through public sector debt collection, and drove the public sector to create even levies.

And now… the rest of the story. …..