World Debt: The Biggest Financial Time Bomb and the Shortest Fuse

We’ve all owed someone something at one point or the other - some negligible, others not so. But how about getting saddled with a $86,000 debt on top of what you own or don’t own? And you don’t have a say in it.

Welcome to the global debt business.

Doth I Protest Too Much

Estimated at about $182 trillion by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the debt industry is the biggest in the world. Individuals, businesses, and governments will borrow based on the premises that the debt will be serviced by paying the principal and interest on it or rolling the debt over. Rolling over allows individuals to consolidate debts and lower payment, while businesses and government have to sell new securities to finance the redemption of maturing securities. However, there’s nothing that really holds governments to pay off their debt as long as the economy can be managed with low interest and inflation.

When money is borrowed, a promise is made to repay the borrowed sum with interest at a certain point in time and the demand for savings is increased. With increased savings, interest rates start to goes up as competition amongst lending institutions intensifies. The more competitive the market gets, the higher the interest rates and the more difficult it becomes for businesses to borrow money, resulting in reduced employment opportunities, lowered tax collection, and higher deficits. Left unchecked, the government may have no other recourse than to borrow more and roll over debt, creating a vicious circle.

Now imagine being able to print new currencies to repay loans, increasing the money supply, inflation rates, salary and infrastructural expenditures that will need more borrowing to solve.
As long as interest rates don’t rise past a certain threshold, governments can keep borrowing and rolling over debt - theoretically. However, market forces don't operate ad infinitum in linearity. Sooner or later, the circle busts and the chickens come home to roost with all the attendant foul play - delinquencies, and defaults, market crash, and financial crisis.

With 7 billion earning an average per capita income of $10,298 according to World Bank, paying off an $86000 debt - assuming we all embrace austerity - is roughly two decades away. But oh, we forgot to add annual interest and payment deadlines for existing loans that most likely will get rolled over into new loans with new interest rates. Adding those and the magnitude of the debt crisis becomes enormous.

Simply put, our world is Bankrupt.

Society’s Greatest Burden

The blunt truth is the world can no longer survive to carry this burden any longer. Dubbed a timebomb on a short fuse set to go off without warning or notice, the global debt burden is set to trigger the next financial crisis as echoed by Joachim Verts, Co-Founder of Joos Protocol.

“Statistics on the delinquent debt alone suggests that credit ratings aren't a strong enough motivator when it comes down to debt that is being heavily deprioritised”

Debt, particularly unresolved debt, is a burden on society. The first path to a healthy economy and a healthy progressive commercial or personal life is to extinguish debt.

But how does one go about nursing the global economy back to health?

Mind Over Matter

Human psychology is a very powerful tool especially when harnessed to trigger predictable behaviours. This powerful tool is what Joos Protocol is now leveraging, built on the backbone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s core pillars - Big Data, AI, and the Blockchain

“When your working reputation or ego or peer status is compromised a very raw human emotional response is triggered” explains Joachim. “We tend to resolve issues that compromise that part of our lives faster. Joos protocol approaches it with a new tact - credit rating is simple and will obviously be one tool but our power lies in human psychology or the ability to apply social and digital pressure in a way to trigger predictable human behaviours”

Joos Protocol is the world’s fastest and most effective debt collection solution built on transparency and cost-efficiency. This autonomous and automated solution based on a decentralized and immutable public ledger system enables users to monitor their entire debt collection solution across a global audience of incentivised digital debt collectors to expedite and optimise successful account remedy solutions. Simple – Using an immutable distributed ledger and with the help of “validators” your debtors list is verified and data integrity is maintained. At the event of default – 1st and 2nd follow-ups are automated mail outs and SMS. Third response sets off the social debt collection response. Details of the debt and a bounty are sent out to the network. “collectors” then work using digital and social pressure to remedy account discrepancies.

Through the consolidation of the world's debts and claims on a transparent, open source, and public ledger with no central authority, Joos Protocol is creating a truly fair and honest new lending marketplace. We hope to become the worlds trusted axial for both borrowers and lenders.