Freedom Unfiltered
  • Blog
  • About
  • Newsletter
    • Preview and Signup
    • Newsletter Archives
  • Podcast
  • Liberty Library
  • Freedom Links
    • Freedom Blogs
    • Liberty Organizations
    • News Sites
    • News Feed
    • Networking and Activism
    • Audio and Video
    • Atlanta Liberty Calendar
  • Contact

Do you own government debt?

4/21/2013

0 Comments

 
Chances are you do. Government debt (treasuries, bills, bonds, notes) are a major component of most investment strategies. Is owning government debt a good idea? It might reduce risk in your portfolio. Some people like the low-risk return. However, investing in government debt comes at a price. It helps to fund some very bad things; things that you might not feel good about supporting with your money. Also, the only way the government can repay the debt (principle + interest) is to tax your neighbors, friends, and family. 

Personally, I think there are better ways to earn a return on the market without forcing others pay for my investment decisions. I choose not to invest in government debt and would encourage others to do the same. 

Writing in 1870, Lysander Spooner was less kind about people who choose to profit by investing in government debt: 
"Who, then, created these debts, in the name of "the United States"? Why, at most, only a few persons, calling themselves "members of Congress," etc., who pretended to represent "the people of the United States," but who really represented only a secret band of robbers and murderers, who wanted money to carry on the robberies and murders in which they were then engaged; and who intended to extort from the future people of the United States, by robbery and threats of murder (and real murder, if that should prove necessary), the means to pay these debts.....They lend money to be expended in robbing, enslaving, and murdering their fellow men, solely because, on the whole, such loans pay better than any others. .... This business of lending blood-money is one of the most thoroughly sordid, cold-blooded, and criminal that was ever carried on, to any considerable extent, amongst human beings. It is like lending money to slave traders, or to common robbers and pirates, to be repaid out of their plunder. And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived."  - Lysander Spooner
What do you think? Are you helping to fund robbery and even murder by investing in government debt?

Learn more about the economics and ethics of government debt and taxation in the Freedom Unfiltered Liberty Library.
Picture
Image from facebook.com/SpontaneousOrderSociety
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Our Mission

    To champion sound economics and individual liberty with an uncompromising respect for human rights. Privatize everything!

    Newsletter Signup

    Archives

    September 2013
    August 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    Economics
    Ethics And Morality
    Freed Markets
    Friends Of Liberty
    Government
    History
    Individual Liberty
    Politics
    Quotes
    Recommended Resources
    Strategies For Liberty
    Video
    Website Announcements

    Subscribe in a reader
     
     
    Freedom Unfiltered

    Promote Your Page Too
      
    Picture
        
      
     
    Get the Newsletter!
Home
About
Contact

Newsletter:

  • Archives
  • Signup
Blog
Podcasts


Liberty Library:
  • Austrian Economics
  • Capitalism
  • Drug War
  • Economic Concepts
  • Federal Reserve
  • Financial Crisis
  • Gold Standard
  • Great Depression

  • Intellectual Property
  • Legal Order
  • Libertarianism
  • Market Solutions
  • Money and Banking
  • Politics
  • Taxation
  • War
Links to Other Resources:
  • Freedom Blogs
  • Liberty Orgs
  • News and Commentary
  • Networking and Activism
  • Audio and Video
Copyright © 2012 Creative Commons, Attribution, Freedom Unfiltered