Harper's article - quote

"we should require the banks we bail out to cancel an appropriate amount of consumer debt—especially in instances where people would have paid back the principal by now had the interest rate been more reasonable. My retired schoolteacher [an example from earlier in article], the one with the husband who is deep into Alzheimer’s and who has already paid $3,000 on a $1,700 loan, should be let off the hook. The banks we have bailed out should follow the Golden Rule: just as their own debts have been written down or paid off, so they in turn should do unto others."

- Thomas Geoghegan