We tend to focus on assets and forget about debts. Financial security requires facing up to the big picture: assets minus debts.
Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets.
The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.
The Congo is very wealthy from oil money but is not paying its debts and at the same time is applying for special status at the World Bank. That's shocking and disingenuous.
I generally encourage people to make good on debts when they have enough money to repay them. But once a delinquency has been reported to a collection agency, paying it off won't help your FICO score. The damage has already been done, and the blemish will remain on your credit report for seven years.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Eurobonds are absolutely wrong. In order to bring about common interest rates, you need similar competitiveness levels, similar budget situations. You don't get them by collectivizing debts.
Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?
The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.
Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.