Repudiation ...

Repudiation ... OMFG

“ Most people, unfortunately, apply the same analysis to public debt as they do to private. If sanctity of contracts should rule in the world of private debt, shouldn't they be equally as sacrosanct in public debt? Shouldn't public debt be governed by the same principles as private? The answer is no, even though such an answer may shock the sensibilities of most people. ”  One of yesterday's links to people I link-to has resulted in a starburst of energetic discovery, and to some extent repudiation and validation of some of my own positions. This link. American Digest  Do Your Duty! You Have the Responsibility as an American to Make Obama Successful. Which also contained this post. “ Put Debt Repudiation On the Table I propose, then, a seemingly drastic but actually far less destructive way of paying off the public debt at a single blow: out-right debt repudiation. Consider this question: why should the poor, battered citizens of Russia or Poland or the other ex-Communist countries be bound by the debts contracted by their former Communist masters? ... Similarly, we the living did not contract for either the past or the present debts incurred by the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. -- Repudiating the National Debt - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily Posted by Vanderleun at 8:36 PM | Your Say (1) ” In the old days (1970s), when perhaps the nation's only broadly distributed conservative opinion came via the Wall Street Journal's Editorial pages, every Thursday contained what I called the " The Thursday Car-loon" column.  When I began reading it that column was written by Alexander Cockburn ( later by Al Hunt, who was as left-wing as Cockburn, but without the intelligence).  This is by way of saying that I think Cockburn is a first class A-hole.  Had I simply watched the video then, I would have left happy with the notion that Vanderleun was presenting an easy  target for disdain .  Advocating the repudiation of credit card debt is a distinctly Commie thing to do. A gentleman is honor bound to his debts, and must go to his grave having done everything possible to pay them.  Then, I clicked the link Repudiating the National Debt - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily. To the extent that my leathery brain cells can expand to accept new and unwelcome formulations, they did. Bear in mind that I am quoting from the Ludwig von Mises Institute web page.   “ In the spring of 1981, conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives cried. They cried because, in the first flush of the Reagan Revolution that was supposed to bring drastic cuts in taxes and government spending, as well as a balanced budget, they were being asked by the White House and their own leadership to vote for an increase in the statutory limit on the federal public debt, which was then scraping the legal ceiling of one trillion dollars. They cried because all of their lives they had voted against an increase in public debt, and now they were being asked, by their own party and their own movement, to violate their lifelong principles. The White House and its leadership assured them that this breach in principle would be their last: that it was necessary for one last increase in the debt limit to give President Reagan a chance to bring about a balanced budget and to begin to reduce the debt. Many of these Republicans tearfully announced that they were taking this fateful step because they deeply trusted their President, who would not let them down. Famous last words. Any melding of public debt into a private transaction must rest on the common but absurd notion that taxation is really "voluntary," and that whenever the government does anything, "we" are willingly doing it. This convenient myth was wittily and trenchantly disposed of by the great economist Joseph Schumpeter: "The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchases of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind." Morality and economic utility generally go hand in hand. Contrary to Alexander Hamilton, who spoke for a small but powerful clique of New York and Philadelphia public creditors, the national debt is not a "national blessing." T ” I have to get ready for the Redskin game, here's the rest of it.  I'll get back to this.  I think.   For the record.  I want to talk about what Clint Eastwood said too.