The world which made debt into a commodity to be bought and sold at a profit was one which efectively brought to life the wish of King Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold - the dream of every desperate American Blue-collar worker trying to put at least one of his kids through college, pay for health insurance for all the family, and be true to the American Dream he had voted for. The magic formula for wealth and happiness had apparently been discovered.
But the lesson of the Midas parable is that golden food and drink are poisonous. The commodification of debt turned the tables on the global capitalist system just as surely as Dionysus tricked the mad king.
Cityphobia: John Lanchester
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