"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, June 20th, 1816
Oh! the profoundness. Such a statement today, especially that which were to come from the mouth of a mortgage broker, would face brutal denunciation. Simply put, the method of borrowing with the intent to make purchases, hugely victimizes the future. Analyze the very word "mortgage" and out will pour findings one might think irrational; that which perhaps nears intermediate moral indecency. From the Latin word, 'mortuus, meaning 'dead;' and the French word, 'gage,' meaning 'pledge;' literally, 'dead pledge.' The word surfaced in 14th century English and was likely descriptive of a loan the borrower would not payoff in their lifetime: it was a debt until death. Today's annotations to the word foremost evoke stability, though it is still the practice that when a homeowner passes away and has no cosigners left to make mortgage payments, the bank which holds the note is free to execute foreclosure. Debt until death; "swindling futurity" at its utmost intensity.
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