• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    It’s the plot of a number of Dickens novels.

    Incidentally, when Charles Dickens was 12 years old, his father was thrown into prison for debt. Charles was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at a boot factory in order to help support his family.

    Colonial empires love imposing debt bondage on minority communities as a means of justifying wage slavery. Also as a form of collective punishment.

    Also incidentally… The United States is stealing Afghanistan’s money.

    Specifically, it has sequestered $3.5B of the $7B in the New York Federal Reserve branch owed to the Afghan Central Government, to be paid out to families of the 9/11 attacks. The remaining $3.5B is untouchable by the current government as well. And sanctions prevent Afghans from accessing global credit and trade, blocking them from doing business with neighboring Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbeckistan, and China.

    The bankruptcy and trade sanctions mean Afghans can’t import relief aid or supplies for capital improvements. And the article illustrated the end results.