/liberty/ - Liberty

>>89105

I don't think there is even one person who thinks it's a reason by itself. Fractional reserve banking is a problem to itself alone. It's the enabler that makes it a beast by pumping taxes to feed it.

Behavior within a system is rarely unethical so long as it does not affect your beliefs on how that system should change. In other words, if behavior that would be unethical in a good world is what is required for you to acquire agency that allows you to help generate that good world and it doesn't cross tangible moral boundaries, it's pointless to avoid it.

> For a libertarian, what is the moral status of buying U.S. federal government treasuries?

Funding an immoral system (i.e. most government programs and agencies) founded on the initiation of force, while dumping the debt (bond plus interest) on children/unborn? Yeah. Thats a hard No on that idea..

The checking account w/o reserves is something basically forced by the government (assuming you need a checking account) with its perverse incentives and laws. Not great, but hardly one of the bigger issues to worry about if no great alternatives exist, especially with time being a limited resource and all.

>>89105

For T-bonds, it depends. You are helping the federal government finance its massive debt, which comes at the expense of taxpayers, but some would argue that as the government has already stolen quite a bit money from you, there's no moral travesty in taking money from the government until you've taken more than what's been stolen from you. I have no intention of purchasing T-bonds for a variety of reasons besides ethical so the question's never really come up for me.

For the checking account, I'd say that's like making the decision of whether or not to buy into what you think is a Ponzi scheme. It's less a question of ethical integrity and more a question of personal interest–if you know this thing you're paying into can't possibly last in the long-term, you should know that putting money into it means there's a chance you won't get it back. The bank and the Fed which enables its fraud are at fault here for deceiving your customers, not you.

>>89107

>Fractional reserve banking is a problem to itself alone.

Not really. Competing banks would keep each other from abusing their fractional reserves and over-issuing currency. The problem isn't the fractional reserve itself; it's just a business model that increases risk to increase reward, which is natural. The problem lies in the fact that the state has eliminated the market mechanism which would keep the risk-taking in check.