Canceling debts sounds great for countries, but what about the lenders?
How does that answer my question?
If you owe money to someone and just decide to forgive your own loan...
that doesn't sound like an idea that'll see you get a loan in the future.
Maybe, if I quote the dictionary.
GREECE, n. A nation in Southern Europe famous for philosophy, mathematics,
architecture, and shortchanging its creditors. Greece was in default or behind
on its debt in 51 percent of the years between 1826 and 2008, according to
economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Nevertheless, professional
investors rushed to buy Greek bonds in the late 2000s. When Greece defaulted
again in 2012, these "experts" were astonished — even though the average
seven-year-old would have advised against lending money to a borrower
with such a history.
When making a loan both parties have obligations. The borrower has an
obligation to pay back the loan; but before the borrower takes the loan,
the lender has an obligation to make sure the borrow can in fact pay back
the loan. Just loaning money to anyone regardless of circumstances just
leads to losses.
Note: In the case of Greece, the lenders took a 50% hard deleveraging
in 2012. In the case of Venezuela lenders get a softer form of deleveraging
in the form of inflation every year.
What do you think of the environmental impacts of digging up rare earths for those technologies?
Very bad. Like most forms of mining. Since 95% occurs in China, one hopes
they have a program that charges the end user a fee for reclamation of the
land and waste products. Unlike the United States where the taxpayer picks
up the cost of the clean up decades or centuries later for a very high price.
P.S. If I remember correctly, NASA had a program for mining asteroids
costing about 2.5 billion dollars that would bring back about 50 billion dollars
worth of rate earths and other materials. Congress last year canceled it favor
of tax cuts. And maybe because no one really knows what it take to clean up
mining in space.