[Uncle Miltie]

No problem.

Now, reason with me.

If Bernanke issues a Quintillion new dollars and hands them out to passers-by, leaving your dollars worthless, is that theft?

[JasonC]

No, it isn't. I still have my dollars and can do with them anything I please. If their exchange value has changed, so does the exchange value of everything, every day. If I don't want to hold one commodity I can hold another and the choice is entirely up to me. So are the consequences. Nobody guaranteed me an exchange value rather than ownership of a specific commodity - because no power in the universe, can.

[JasonC]

We agreed then on social security being boondoggle and waste compared to payment on public debt.

Is the existence of public debt ruinous? Is debt of any kind a mortal sin? Is it, at least, pragmatically speaking the end of the republic and the American way and all things right and true? Should all debts we defaulted on in principle to, I don't know, make capital cheaper in the fevored dreams of some populist idiot or other?

Or is the income from capital, including income from the servicing of public debts, entirely legitimate and entirely earned by the beneficiary, in a way few other public payments are or can be? Surely, for direct services, say blood sweat and tears of a Marine, that is also entirely legitimate and worth every penny. But 2/3 to 3/4 of all government spending is of quite a different moral character, and paying the debt stands morally and economically higher than all that portion. Yes?

[JasonC]

Also, he hasn't and isn't going to, but I answered the question of principle before the snide slander.

And what is the snide slander doing in the thread, mucking up the principle of income from capital?

I'll tell everyone. Heresies about income from capital that amount to attempting to criminalize finance and indict modern American capitalism, as reckless and unsubstantiated as anything the commies engaged in and Mises fought so hard against, are rampant among pretend conservatives today, including on this site.

Which is why it is essential to get the underlying principle rock solid first. Men who provide capital to others deserve the income they derive from it. Full stop.