Of course it has real value. And huge value indeed it has. But this is not created by the title holder. Paying rent to title holder, or interest extractor, without any labour nor entrepreneurship, creates additional cost to market prices.

No, the market price does not depend on whether it is extracted by the man who created the value or by someone else. If I can deny you an object of value, I can get you to pay for it, whether I created it or not.

There are advantages to taxing rents, but lower cost of living is not one of them.

Interest is payment for deployment of state power (money) to serve your goals. That, as well, has a real value.

I was talking about interest created over existing wealth.

Interest is still a payment for services rendered. Specifically, it is a payment for the service of not sending goons with guns to kick you out of your home. (That's also the service taxes are paid for.)

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.