ABSTRACT
The most important aspect of the present-day inflation problem in the United States is its bearing on the relations between debtors and creditors. This chapter deals with the relationship of American inflation, actual and prospective, to debtors and creditors in the United States of to-day. In considering the weight of this increased debt burden and its injustice to the debtor classes, certain mitigating factors should be taken into account that are commonly ignored or underestimated in popular discussion of this subject. In some kinds of business this status of being both debtor and creditor is found on a large scale. A life insurance company is a creditor for all the bonds and mortgages it owns, and is a debtor to all of its policy-holders. If one considers short-term debts as well as long-term debts, there are many more creditors in the United States than debtors.
