SIR,

Concerning the debt crisis extant throughout the world, I wish to offer the following solution.

Similar debt crises have occurred throughout history and earlier (wiser?) societies learnt to solve the problem with a 'debt Jubilee'.

In the book of Leviticus in the Bible, every 50th year is a jubilee year in which slaves and prisoners are to be freed and debts are to be forgiven.

In the history of ancient Athens, Solon (638 to 558 BC) introduced a set of laws called Seisachtheia, cancelling all current debts and retroactively cancelling previous ones that have caused slavery and serfdom.

In this way debt slaves and debt serfs were freed and debts were cancelled.

This left the societies free to build again with a wiser and more measured approach to trade and a considerably more measured approach to credit.

History has a habit of repeating itself and this may yet prove to be a way out of the ghastly situation that greed and the rape of our planet's resources has delivered us into.

Keith Foster

(Monmouth)