Editorial August 1, 1983 Issue

Another view of debt

Nathan A. Talbot

Few if any of us today go untouched by debt. For some, the reminder is vivid: a mounting stack of unpaid bills. For others the question is a step or two removed—how to vote on a municipal bond issue, how to feel about the federal debt. And most of us are becoming more aware of the implications for the international community when nations are hardly able to pay even the interest on what they owe.

Regardless of our financial standing, the problem of debt needs to be faced and solved. Sometimes problems are not what they seem to be. If we aren't discerning enough to recognize the real issue, things stay unresolved. I remember a kitten we used to have. I would hold my hand near a lamp, forming a figure that danced around on the far wall. Try as she would, the kitten could never pin down her elusive prey as she chased the shadow back and forth.

People do that too. They pursue what their thought gets fastened on; they think they are chasing down the real culprit. But what they are really dealing with is too often only shadow—the material events that have succeeded in attracting and holding their attention. This doesn't mean we will avoid the need to pay off our debts. But it does mean that the cure for financial squeezes may lie in something more fundamental than the amount of cash we can pull together.

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