Debt

Chuck Collins 10-27-2008

After three decades of "concentrate the wealth," we could really use some "spreading the wealth."

Tom Allio 8-05-2008

The people of Ohio won a big victory over the predatory payday lending industry this June when a new state law banned the sky-high interest rates that had trapped many poor Ohioans, as Tom Allio describes in the August issue of Sojourners. Below, Allio, who is chair of the coalition of faith-based consumer, labor, and human services groups that won the [...]

Elizabeth Palmberg 7-29-2008

Andrew Berg, an International Monetary Fund African department policy adviser, is a nice man. I know this because he spent some time talking earnestly with me after an IMF press conference in which I'd asked a pretty confrontational question about Malawi, whose 2002 famine is often partly attributed to IMF (and World Bank) advice, and whose current bumper crops are attributed to ignoring it.

Berg looks a tiny bit like The X Files' Agent Skinner, but what this conversation [...]

Elizabeth Palmberg 5-06-2008

One of Jesus' most in-your-face stories, and a personal favorite of mine, is the Parable of the Dishonest Manager in Luke 16. I would loosely paraphrase its central insight as follows: "If you have the sense God gave a dog, you will realize that you can't hold onto money very long anyway, but you can keep the friends you make by giving it to those in need. You do the math." The passage [...]

Danny Schechter 12-01-2007
Predatory credit hurts homeowners - and the world economy.
Administrator 8-03-2007

When Saddam Hussein's regime executed someone, it required the victim's family to pay for the bullets used. An appalling practice - but one which, Iraqis in the Jubilee Iraq campaign say, bears all too much resemblance to present-day demands that Iraq's people pay debts Hussein racked up during the Iran-Iraq war, which devastated the country and claimed around a million lives. [...]

Asserting that "it takes two to tango," the Jubilee movement argues that it is high time lenders assume their share of responsibility for the debt crisis.

Emira Woods 8-01-2007
Jubilee South campaigners go beyond calls for debt relief.

The Jubilee movement works to free the world's poorest countries from debt.

Corruption is a problem in Kenya and many countries. Where corruption is intractable, trust funds can be used to ensure that money freed by debt cancellation is used to benefit the poor.

Through the Jubilee USA Congregations program, faith communities across the U.S.

Hollywood's humanitarian helpers direct more attention to global hot spots. But does it help?
Elizabeth Palmberg 11-01-2004
Hope for the world's poorest countries
Rose Marie Berger, 9-01-2003

In Nairobi, 700 children walked out of school and through the streets this April, calling for an end to their country's debt burden.

College, credit cards, and students: A dangerous mix?
David Batstone 5-01-2002

Want some free financial consultation? It won't take more than a few seconds, I promise.

Marie Dennis 1-01-2001
Considering that two years ago Congress had little interest in the issue, the action is nothing short of a miracle.