Capital.

Editor,

I am livid over the hoarding of capital -- two trillion dollars by giant corporations and many billions more in offshore tax havens by extremely wealthy individuals -- precisely because capital is created when the Federal Reserve loans money to banks.

That capital is the property of the people of the USA because the people of the USA pay for its creation via the price they pay for every good and service they purchase in the USA.

Capital is common property exactly like an Interstate highway or an aircraft carrier is common property because the cost of creating capital is shared by every American.

And yet that capital, that publicly created, public owned store of financial energy, is being hoarded by people and institutions simply because they have the political power to hoard it. But its purpose is -- specifically and explicitly -- to be invested so as to generate wealth for American society as a whole.

This is what Republicans do not understand about tax policy: that non-productive capital, hoarded capital, needs to be reclaimed by the state and invested: in infrastructure, health, education, and other services essential to the cohesion, productivity, and prosperity of the American public.

Hoarded capital is not only non-productive capital. It is stolen.

Re: "Government Standoff Shakes Trust in U.S. Debt" (10/9/2013)