America Disregarded 4,000 Years of History In Responding to the Great RecessionWe’ve known for over 4,000 years that debts need to be periodically written down, or the entire economy will collapse. After all, debt grows exponentially … while economies only grow in an s-curve. The ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, the early Jews and Christians, the Founding Fathers of the United States and others throughout history knew that private debts had to be periodically forgiven.