People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1896 — Prices and Debts. [ARTICLE]

Prices and Debts.

The argument so often made that decreased prices must necessarily follow increased production is not tenable, although no one denies that if the price of shoes, for instance, decreases the money so received will have a correspondingly greater purchasing power in other commodities. But this will not do, for, although its purchasing power is increased so far as commodities are concerned, debts have not fallen, and as the debts of the country—personal, municipal, state and national—constitute 40 per cent of the entire wealth, which must be borne by the people, it is perfectly plain that the increased fruits of the people’s toil are ignominiously surrendered to the creditor, thus giving the latter an unearned increment for the use of his capital.—TorneyE. Waadner.