[smsm42]

Right, because everybody knows 50 years will never come, so nobody would think to take advantage of it on 48-th and 49-th year. Or do you mean it will always be 50 years in the future - like communism in the Soviet Union? Then it makes total sense.

> And then people with money to loan out can factor the coming jubilee into their credit decisions.

Can you venture a guess what that decision would be? If you have money and you know you debtor will be able to refuse to return your money in, say, 2 years - how willing you would be to lend it out? Now also consider that collection can take multiple years - and consider when credit markets would completely shut down? 5 years before the Jubilee? 10 years? Will the banks also be allowed to refuse to pay interest on deposits in Jubilee - or if they are not, where the money to pay interest will come from if everybody would be defaulting on their loans at once? In fact, will the banks be allowed to just refuse to pay out the deposits at all - since term deposit is nothing more than a loan you give to the bank? And if not, where those deposits are coming from since these money are already given out as loans and forgiven on Jubilee?

[ThomasGokey]

In the 48th and 49th year lenders would make loans that would be much smaller and more realistically paid off in the short term. There is no way that debtors can force lenders to lend if they don't think it's a good deal.

As you get closer and closer to a Jubilee year it would get harder to get a big loan. People would put of large projects until the first years of a new cycle.

[maxerickson]

I never said I thought it was a great idea. I imagine it was far more sensible in the days when individuals that controlled land were making loans to their tenants.