Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/164

150 farmers are the life insurance companies, whose assets are the combined property of many millions of policy holders. So it is with the mortgages on urban real estate, the money for which comes largely from the life insurance companies and the savings banks, wherefore the claim upon these forms of property rests among many millions of people.

Besides mortgages on real estate claims on the physical wealth of the United States by others than the titular holders of the property are represented by government bonds and notes, state, county and municipal bonds, corporate bonds, and notes for bank loans. The obligations of the Federal Government are of course collectable out of everything through the medium of taxation. The state, county and municipal bonds are in the same way first liens on all the property within the respective political subdivisions.

The public debt of the United States, June 30, 1922, was about 23 billion dollars, represented chiefly by liberty and victory bonds. It was estimated by Treasury experts at that time that there were at least 10 million holders of these bonds. There were some concentrated holdings. Thus, at the end of 1922 the national banks owned 234 billions of United States securities. It is obvious however that upward of 10 million bond owners implies a wide distribution of this national claim upon the wealth of the country.

The total of state, county and municipal indebtedness in 1922 was about eight billion dollars. These bonds are probably owned largely by the more wealthy class of investors.

The total of loans and discounts by the national banks at the end of 1922 was 11,600 million dollars.