[JimS]

"CREATORS OF NATIONAL DEBT <br /> <br /> Now the National Debt in 1913 was £706,000,000 and in 1935 was £7,945,000,000 or ten times as much, and it is steadily rising. Probably 80% of this debt was created by the process to which the Encyclopedia Britannica refers, that is to say, by the banks creating money out of nothing and lending it to the country through the agency of War Bonds and other national securities. Or to put the matter another way, just as the banks create money out of nothing, so they bought the War Debt for nothing, and our income tax, sur-tax, and death duties are what we pay them for having created and appropriated the National Debt for their own use.<br /> <br /> It does not require much assistance to see that just so long as the population will stand it - and Sir Josiah Stamp assures us that, with care, the population will stand much more of it - we shall go on paying an increasing amount of taxes, the major portion of which will go to increase the power of banking institutions and their grip upon the population. <br /> <br /> If the stock and bonds which the banks, including the Bank of England, have appropriated in the last fifty years had been placed to the credit of the community, not only should we be free of taxation but we should be drawing a substantial dividend.<br /> <br /> A common objection to this statement is that under these conditions banks would pay fantastic dividends; but this is a misconception. Banks do, in fact, pay high dividends upon a comparatively small capital, but the stupendous profits which are made by the manipulation of the money system on the general principles that I have just been indicating to you, do not go to anybody; they disappear by book-keeping processes, and by the formation of stupendous invisible reserves; and, since they increase the disparity between purchasing power and real wealth, they perform a continuous deflation system. <br /> <br /> For instance, if you see that the securities held by a bank amount to £100,000,000 sterling, you might suppose that that was the market value of the securities. It is extremely probable, in the case of a British stock bank, that every £100,000,000 of securities shown on the balance sheet represents at least £1,000,000,000 of market prices in normal times, and by this process of writing down, which is much more complex than the simple instance just cited, it is possible to conceal profits of several hundreds percent per annum, and there is little doubt that it is done.<br /> <br /> The so-called stability of the British banking system is simply a measure of its grip on the national resources." (C.H. Douglas)<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.alor.org/Library/Dictatorshipbytaxation.htm#1a">Dictatorship by Taxation</a><br />

[This]

We would be better off without a money system.

[Chumley]

Debt isn't slavery, it is more like being an indentured servant.
You are free when you pay for what you have.
Much of the debt we have these days are because of luxuries.

Growing up, I remember we had 1 small television, one phone, one family car and 1000 sq foot house.

These days many people have 2-4 televisions, 2-4 home phones with features like call display/call answer/voice mail/ etc., a cell phone for every member of the family with all the aforementioned options, 1 or 2 home computers with an internet connection, possibly a laptop as well, and all the kids have ipods, gameboys, etc.
Every one has two vehicles - one of them is probably a 4X4 suv, because you just never know when you might have to go off road... Houses these days are twice the size they used to be too.
People have hot tubs, and quads and boats and all sorts of other stuff.

You take all this stuff out of the picture, and you might find yourself out of debt reasonably quick.