Chris M
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TonyPrep,
What you say reminds me of the lyrics of the Rolling Stones song, “Sympathy for the Devil”.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my gameChina lashed out at the United States for its “terrible human rights problems” in a report on Thursday, adding to recent international criticism of Washington on issues ranging from violence inflicted on minorities to U.S. immigration policies.
This reminds me of that interview Trump did with Bill O’Reilly. I took note that Trump didn’t reveal who he was calling killers in our country.
Maybe he was saving that card for another day.
I’m appreciative of Kunstler’s comments about medicine in the United States. He brings up a good point about the preventative side of medicine. I’ve been a promoter that good health starts at the farm. Healthy soils. Healthy plants. Healthy livestock. Healthy people. I’ve also been heard saying that clean, nutrient-dense food should be your medicine. It’s really sad how sometimes you know more about nutrition than the doctor you might see on any given day.
Concerning immigration… I think of a border like the front door of your home. Even though a person might be frantically pounding on that door to get in, I imagine you’d still vet why the person wants to come in so desperately, lest it be some kind of ruse that endangers your family inside. Love protects. Wisdom is always in order in those situations.
If you consider the border between the United States and Mexico, for example, I always ask why so many people want to leave that country and come here. What’s wrong with Mexico? I’m sure we might have many answers for that, but I’m often reminded of what Ross Perot talked about when he ran for president. He spoke about how NAFTA wasn’t really going to help Mexico. If you allow companies to go there to exploit labor, how was that going to help them? Was that going to bring up their standard of living to ours? Did the flow of people across the border stop after it was implemented?
This is a similar kind of thing Tulsi Gabbard is talking about in her proclamations. Bless her message. Maybe I’m a poor prognosticator, but I see the United States setting up shop in ISIS land, to create a wedge between Shia Syria and Shia Iran. You can already witness the recruiting of the Sunni Arabian states to make that happen (not much recruiting needed I suppose). Israel looks pretty happy about it too. Oh…that might put a damper on that Shia Iranian pipeline across Syria to Europe. Insert Sunni pipeline from the Arabian peninsula??
Dangerous times.
In response to the posting Mr. Meijer made yesterday concerning David Stockman:
Although I appreciate Mr. Stockman’s comments concerning the necessity to discern the quality and quantity of Federal government spending, I have yet to hear him say anything that demonstrates his acknowledgement of where real wealth is generated. The big piece of federal revenue comes from income tax. What is income? It’s production X price.
Stockman come from the Reagan administration. Although I have to admit, I don’t know all that Stockman believes concerning economics, but I do remember a lot of the Reagan people talking about the Laffer curve and supply side economics.
The Laffer curve supposed it was the government’s job to maximize taxable income. This certainly ignores that the government, unless it applies labor to natural resources it owns, does not produce anything. Remember, income is production X price.
And when it comes to supply creating its own demand, the supply siders somehow left out the price part of the equation. Our dear commodity traders have a nasty habit of driving down that price to the point where there isn’t enough national income generated through the trade turn for that supply to be consumed.
I want to commend Hotrod, who, the other day, posted that great interview of Mr. Michael Hudson. Mr. Hudson hammered a lot of nails squarely on the head.
Trippytaka,
You’ve done right in expounding on the point I was making before, about people trying to grow in wealth and power by undervaluing others.
In a complex society, with multiple divisions of labor, such an undervaluing is a fool’s errand. Depriving labor of proper income, which becomes an almost insidious form of slavery, deprives them of the means to consume their own collective production. The common remedy for that has been to issue the people debt, both directly and through government borrowing. But debt is a subversive thing, when allowed to come to full measure, forces the ownership of nearly everything into the hands of a small percentage of the population. That is a condition ripe for revolution.
It’s my understanding that there have been things in history called peasants revolts. It is also my understanding that such things are not pleasant. Someone here can correct me, if I’m wrong about that.
Hopefully we won’t get to that painful point.
Hotrod,
I never heard of the physiocrats until I read the book I keep touting here–Unforgiven..the American System Sold for War and Debt by Charles Walters.
You might deride the physiocrats until you get stranded on a deserted island with a bunch of other people. What will you and the others decide to do first in order to survive? Create a bank and print money? I think not. I think it’s more like applying labor to the resources at hand.
Just my guess.
I want to offer an apology for my comments yesterday. It may have appeared that I was stereotyping our younger generations as not having critical thinking skills. By recognizing the encouraging number of younger readers of this blog, it’s obvious that the lack of those skills is not universal amongst them. By visiting and pondering the words of this site, you are surely demonstrating the ability and desire to think critically. I tip my hat to you.
After reading all the comments posted yesterday I can’t help but think that some of the discouragement comes from a lack of leadership in demonstrating what ethical trade, or economics, looks like. As a Christian, I plant the blame firmly on the church in America, and elsewhere. The church has been quite vocal about pointing out many sins in society. You know what some of those are. But I contend that many in the church have done a terrible job in speaking against greed and also corruption in government.
It would be a blessing to hear more instruction about producing something of value in society and trading fairly with others that are doing the same. That fair trade comes from the sense that the person you are trading with is made in the image of God and has inalienable value. The wealth of both parties can be enhanced through trade…and in not only in the physical sense, but the emotional, psychological, and spiritual senses as well.
Contrast that with the notion that I can become wealthy by not valuing someone and gaining the upper hand in the trade. Or, perhaps, just as disgusting, I can grow wealthy by undervaluing someones production or labor by gambling at the “hallowed” derivatives market. It could be said that cheapening one man cheapens us all.
I applaud the posting of the comments by Dr. Hall. I’m encouraged that the wisdom of the physiocrats of old is not dead. The physiocrats understood that economics was about energy transfer, and that all new wealth comes from the soil.
Trent,
Thank you for your contribution. What you said is exactly what I was thinking as I read through Mr. Meijer’s posting today.
I’ll never forget coming back to my hometown, while I was in college, to talk with one of my former high school science teachers. He confided with me how disgusted he was with the lack of critical thinking skills among the students he was teaching. This was back in the late 1980’s. It is about 30 years later, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that things have gotten worse.
Add that to the lack of real teaching in our schools (at any grade level) about wealth, money, and the basics of trade, and we have a big problem “Houston”.
As you correctly allude to Trent, an ignorant and distracted populace can be easily controlled…and swindled. What did Stalin call them? Useful idiots?
Nassim,
I didn’t think the scientific method was about democracy, but about winnowing and sifting for truth. I could be wrong.
Oh…and about “What happens when nobody tells them the truth.” This always reminds me of a passage of scripture.
“…my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”
Hosea 4:6Currency manipulation? I guess it depends on how you define manipulation. Supply of money and how it moves (velocity) has a lot to do with things. Central banks have nothing to do with that, do they???
As far as Stockman’s comments go, if no one in Washington DC comes to understand where real wealth comes from, and how it should be priced through fair trade, nothing is going to improve economically.
You either earn your way, borrow, or go without. Your choice.
I don’t know if any of you had the chance to witness Donald Trump’s press conference this week, but it was surely a thing to behold–historic, some people called it. The way he took the mainstream media to task was almost surreal. I say almost surreal, because it was something you’d come to expect from Trump, at this point.
Michael Snyder has a good article about this, which I think is spot on.
It Is About Time That We Had A President That Was Willing To Go To War With The Mainstream Media
Yes, I know. It’s Michael Snyder. Put any opinions you have about his ideology aside for a bit and ponder what he has to say. I’m sure many, if not all, of you figured out what he has to say a long time ago.
How many people have the ability to stand up to evil and corruption, when they don’t even know the truth of what is happening?
Does the main stream media in the United States, for example, report on what is really happening in Greece?
What about Syria?
What about the Ukraine? Crimea? (Or “Korea” as Maxine Waters says)
What about what the World Bank or the IMF does?
I could go on and on, as you know.
It is said that light disinfects. We need more light.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19-20
Dr. D,
Stockman doesn’t talk about the need to be earning our way, instead of borrowing our way, as Mr. Meijer correctly points out. That’s the crux of the matter. You’re not going to return to a solvent national economy by simply tweaking tax policy or regulations. That won’t be enough.
As I keep saying, earning our way starts with raw materials being priced at parity such that there is enough national income generated through the trade turn for consumers to earn enough to consume their own production. If you don’t do that, you can go without or borrow to consume.
The earned dollar and borrowed dollar look the same. The earned dollar doesn’t have to be paid back. The borrowed dollar does.
Remember, debt means death.
Nassim,
I don’t know if you have read about Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s fact finding mission in Syria. Inconvenient truth, to say the least.
Any comments?
Jef,
Subsidies are a way for the government to supplement the farmers’ income, because they are not earning their way via parity prices for their production. Some would call it a form of corporate welfare.
Farmers don’t need subsidization when they are earning their way, getting their fair share of income through balanced pricing. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, parity prices for agricultural commodities were enforced in the United States. The farmers didn’t need subsidization then.
I say enforce the parity laws again. That will force capital out of the reserves and create money velocity as production moves through the trade turn. That’s real stimulus. Forget the subsidies and all the bureaucracy that goes with it.
Oxymoron,
I kind of like your rant. It reminds me of something I’ve posted here before…something Benjamin Franklin said:
There are only 3 ways for a nation (or individual, for that matter) to become wealthy. It could make war and take the wealth of another by force (stealing). It could trade freely and make a profit by cheating, because the exchange of goods was beneficial only in increasing the variety of stuff a consumer could use, but to make a monetary profit requires a policy of overpricing one product compared to another (aka stealing through unfair trade). But, a nation could profit through agriculture, where by planting the seed we create new wealth as if by a miracle.
I like that third way, much, much better. 😃
Nassim,
I checked out your link about Trotskyism.
It’s my understanding that the neo-cons originally had latched themselves onto the Democratic Party until the Democrats wouldn’t be the “war party” anymore. Then they moved to the Republican Party where there were “greener pastures” for their combative politics, I guess you could say.
So, without doing further research, I guess I can see the link between them and the Trotskyites.
To me, the neo-cons represent the pursuit of empire….their empire. Some see the cozy relationship between them and the powers-that-be in Israel, and conclude that their goal is to help Israel establish empire in the Middle East and beyond. I don’t know. That claim is beyond my means to verify.
What Israel’s role in the world is, is a debate that can get quite theological in nature very quickly. I guess that’s inevitable, when you make the claim that you’re God’s Chosen People. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, but the first question I’ll ask is this: chosen to do what?
The thing that I find hard in all this, is that nearly everytime you try to make some kind of criticism of something that the powers-that-be in Israel does, somebody, somewhere, labels you as an anti-Semite. Does that mean that the leadership in Israel is beyond reproach? If that’s true, that’s a dangerous position for them to take, both for them, and for the rest of the world.
pjmeli,
If fractional reserve banking doesn’t or never existed, I’m not sure why it has a trademark. Anyways, I don’t mind arguments, but I didn’t really want to get in a discussion about how fiat money is created, or the Federal Reserve.
To use your data, if it costs business $1 to produce, and it costs $3 to consume, then the selling price is much too above parity price, and business is getting more than its fair share. That’s why there isn’t enough income to consume. The economy is quite out of balance. However, I’m not sure where you are deriving your data. Data collectors have a knack for massaging the numbers for their particular benefit. You can’t analyze where things out of balance in the economy using massaged data. It can’t work.
I think we can agree on one thing. If we need debt to consume, something certainly is out of balance in the economy. I know farmers in the US haven’t gotten parity prices for their commodities since the 1950’s. Knowing that parity prices for raw materials is vital to provide enough income to consume, that’s a place that certainly needs fixing in order to make the economy solvent. Earn our way, not borrow our way!
pjmeli,
I understand how fiat money is created and fractional reserve banking.
My point is that I don’t think all the government debt was purchased with earnings.
And… I have my doubts Stockman really understands how a functional national economy is supposed to work. The supply siders always talked about supply creating its own demand. That’s true, but what they never talk about is the supply, particularly the raw material supply, being PRICED at parity to generate enough national income to consume the supply. If you don’t generate enough income, you tend to resort to debt to make up the difference.
That’s the lesson Stockman, Reaganites, and supply siders need to learn.
Nassim,
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen that article about the neo-cons.
So tell me something. What is the over-arching goal of the neo-cons?
Have any insights?
$20 trillion in savings?
By whom? How was it derived?
There couldn’t be any of that fiat currency involved, could there? You know–that stuff found all over the world.
Just asking.
Glennda,
Be careful about calling what Wilken was able to get Congress to pass, New Deal regulations. It’s my understanding that this was not part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, but separate from it.
The agricultural parity pricing laws that Congress passed is NOT price fixing, as some people like to think. The prices float with the costs of production. It is an index. The idea is to maintain the RELATIONSHIP between the price of any given commodity and the cost to bring it to the market. It is not to try to fix the price of anything.
In fact–and I’m sure you won’t find this hard to believe–there are guys in some obscure office of the USDA who still calculate and publish parity prices for a whole slew of agricultural products, on a monthly basis. They are required by law to do so. You can go onto the USDA website, for example, and find out what the parity price for corn should be today. Pretty fascinating.
Here’s the punchline: parity pricing laws are still on the books, but not being enforced by USDA and the Secretary of Agriculture.
The federal government not enforcing its laws??! Sound familiar?
Oops. That should have said Davos, instead of Davis.
Automatic spelling correction–a blessing and a curse. 😉
John Day,
Thanks for your comments.
Henry Ford understood that a functional, solvent economy had to be balanced. The income of producers had to be balanced with the income of laborers, or wage earners, who constitute the largest share of consumer purchasing. If one sector of the economy gets more than its fair share, that imbalance undermines the whole economy.
I remember one time bringing up what Henry Ford said about this to a gentleman from the Mises Institute who was a guest on a call-in radio show. Unfortunately, the expert from Mises disputed what I had to say about Henry Ford, by going on to explain that Ford paid his workers more because he was forced to be “more efficient” due to competition.
It is really sad to witness how many people, who should know better, miss the relative simplicity and elegance of how a complex economy, as we have in places like the United States with much division of labor, really is to function, to be prosperous, without resorting to these silly debt-induced booms and busts.
Furthermore, I want to comment on something I didn’t include in my posting yesterday. I am fully aware how our economy will change in the future as our non-renewable forms of concentrated energy will become more scarce and net-energy negative. When I was running my certified organic vegetable farm in the Midwest, I had the blessed opportunity to rub shoulders with people who were thinking about, and trying to build a more local-based economy, especially in terms of agricultural production and distribution. That kind of contemplation was certainly spurred by $4.00 per gallon gasoline.
But even if we have to depend more on carbohydrates, instead of hydrocarbons, the need for a fair trade and balanced economy will remain.
I’ll repeat what I said yesterday. If my production at the base of the economy is undervalued, I can’t properly value the production and labor of those I engage with in trade. Those producers and laborers, consequently, cannot properly value their suppliers and laborers…and on and on it goes, cascading throughout. That is the basis of how depressions start and manifest themselves. The natural resources (in what forms they still exist) are there. The people to apply labor to them are still there. But trade, or money velocity starts to grind down slower and slower, showing itself as a deflationary spiral. It can be observed in the measurement of declining earned national income, but, unfortunately, that is often masked by borrowing taking the place of those earnings.
The message is simple. We need to earn our way, instead of borrowing our way. A system of compounding debt forces wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
And the participants at Davis are scratching their heads wondering why “prosperity is spread too unfairly”. That’s really rich. Pun not intended.
I enjoyed the Alastair Crooke article posted yesterday. I was “late to the party”, in submitting my comments, so I’ll do that today.
I’ve occasionally contributed my understandings here about what it takes to bring about a prosperous national economy that isn’t subject to the cycles of booms and busts we experience today. My knowledge of what it takes to accomplish that end is not derived from anything I discovered through my own effort, but what was realized by a man named Carl Wilken (and others doing research with him), who, in the latter part of the 1930’s and early 1940’s, set out to figure out what really caused the Great Depression. Carl Wilken came from Iowa, where he farmed.
What Carl Wilken discovered, by examining the extensive national economic records kept by the United States federal government, was that whenever the income of raw material producers at the base of the national economy dropped, the whole income, or total income, of the nation dropped in constant proportion. This is what happened during the depression, and it happened in a big way. And it didn’t happen because raw material producers, especially agriculture, produced much less than they had been doing before. It happened because the prices of what they produced, or brought to market, dropped in price below their costs to produce. That loss of income, at the raw material level, cascaded throughout the whole economy, such that the nation of consumers didn’t have the income to consume their own collective production. The predictive result of such a phenomenon is that consumers choose not to buy, causing inventories to build up, or…..they will resort to borrowing, in order to consume that production.
As we know, an earned dollar looks materially the same as a borrowed dollar, except that a borrowed dollar has to be paid back (often times with a rental fee added), while an earned dollar doesn’t. So, by having to pay for yesterday’s wants and needs today, I have less money to pay for today’s wants and needs. Income growth to compensate for that, you say? Constantly having to pay for yesterday’s purchases with today’s money, will be a drag on income growth and capital growth….unless we keep drawing into the well of borrowing, which, we all know, cannot be sustained forever. I think Allistair Crooke correctly alluded to that.
What brings about an unreasonable drop of national raw material prices? It’s invariably due to speculation (commodity “gambling”), and/or a rupture of prices through imports.
So when Carl Wilken, et. al. discovered the repeatable and predictable relationship between raw material income (production times price), and total national income, he suggested to Congress that they support the prices of the main agriculture commodities at “cost of production” price levels (aka parity prices), so that there would be enough income generated, through the trade turn, to consume the production. That, in effect, would promote full production, and keep raw material producers (farmers especially) in business, as was vital during World War II. And, by protecting prices through tariffs, world prices would have to come up to our level, and our standard of living, instead of us dropping our prices to their level, and their standard of living.
Congress listened, and through the various acts they passed, made what Wilken was suggesting possible. The result was a period of prosperity to finally take us out of the depression, and even fight a two-front war, without accumulating excessive debt, which we know is the norm today.
The acts Congress passed were allowed to expire two years after the war ended. Carl Wilken and his associates tried to get Congress to make the parity laws permanent, but they would not. They passed a watered down version, that was lacking the necessary balance of parity pricing to allow consumers to fully consume the production. We then resorted to borrowing, to make up the lack of income, and have never turned back.
So, when the Trump administration claims that they can bring back prosperity, by tax cuts, increased spending (priming the pump), and reductions in regulations, I understand that they could marginally and measurably improve national income by doing those things. This might come about through money more fully flowing through the trade turn in the private sector, than what could be accomplished by government taxing and spending. However, the prosperity will not reach the level it could if raw material prices are kept in balance with costs.
How many times have we heard it stated in this forum, for example, that if oil prices fall below the cost of production, oil companies lay off people, spend less on supplies, etc., and decline to make capital improvements or expansions? That lack of proper income cascades throughout the whole economy helping to contribute to a deflationary spiral, or slowing of money velocity. These are concepts we understand well.
This is true of any raw material (agriculture, mining, forestry, fishing, recycling). So, until the Trump Administration understands that all wealth comes from the soil, and that wealth cannot be undervalued– through less than parity pricing–we will never truly or fully achieve a solvent national economy (not resorting to debt or a lower standard of living), despite any tactic they come up with to remedy our economic malaise. Their efforts, even if totally sincere, will be disappointing at best.
That’s not to say they can’t learn these things, but will they?
I have always been impressed with the people who frequent this site, in terms of their competence in understanding economics. I strongly recommend any reader of this blog to read the book Unforgiven by Charles Walters. It is subtitled–The American Economic System Sold for War and Debt. I think all of you will find it fascinating. It reports on a little known part of our economic history. The book can still be found on the Acres USA website. Charles Walters devoted much of the book in outlining the things Carl Wilken said to him in an interview Mr. Walters conducted with Wilken a short time before Wilken died.
Well, I’ve said enough for today. Best wishes to you all. I’ll gladly take comments or questions. 😃
What is the establishment?
What is a conservative?
Who is in the alt-right?
It seems like these terms are thrown around so loosely nowadays, it is difficult to know what they mean.
Trivium,
You know, it’s nice that Steve Keen tells us that continually borrowing our way, instead of earning our way, is not sustainable. But why doesn’t he spend time telling us how we can actually earn our way and have a solvent economy? Have I missed those articles of his? Does he not know how that would work? As you say, is he that ignorant or stupid?
Doesn’t hardly seem possible that he is, does it?
Great selection of articles today, Raul.
Raleigh,
Don’t forget what the university of experts has done in agriculture. Problems in agricultural production are “solved” with more synthetic rescue chemisties (synthetic pesticides), limited analysis fertilizers, and “ingenious” shuffling of genes (aka GMO’s). This greatly profits the large industries that bring such inputs to farmers. Too little is done to promote soil building–nutrient balancing, organic matter increase, and microbiologic diversity. We know that sick soils equal sick crops, equal sick livestock, equal sick people. The good news is that there is a counter culture of farmers and consumers that are bucking that trend and bringing clean, nutrient dense food to the marketplace.
The story of Henry George reminds me a lot of the story of Carl Wilken. Wilken, an Iowa farmer, in researching the causes of the Great Depression, discovered the relationship of raw material prices, and the corresponding raw material income, with national income. He was the force in getting Congress to pass the bills that made a parity economy possible during World War II, and the two years after the war. When the legislation was due to expire, he and others tried their hardest to make the legislation permanent. But, just like with George, the powers that be, brought in every bureaucrat, economist, university expert, and hired gun and hack to discredit the thing. Long story short, the legislation was replaced, watered down, and plainly ignored, which then caused the shortage of national income we still live with today.
Why was the parity economy opposed? Simply, it was because it was a fair trade balanced economy. Sadly, many people today profit from speculation/gambling, unfair trade across borders, war, and, as Trivium points out endlessly here, the debt fiat money that requires large amounts of rent for its use.
I always enjoyed what Benjamin Franklin said concerning this issue. He said there were three ways for a nation to become wealthy. First was by war, and taking away the wealth of another by force. Second was by trade, which to make a profit requires something cheap (cheating someone of their money). The third was by agriculture, whereby planting a seed you create new wealth as if by a miracle.
Seychelles,
I guess that I am a little frustrated seeing all these articles whereby it is suggested that these people, central bankers in particular, are clueless as to what they are doing. I mean the people that read this blog could easily construct an economy that would work and be solvent. Are you telling me that we are that much smarter than them? If that is the case, how in the world did they get their jobs?? It just sounds ludicrous to me.
Ken,
You are exactly right. Labor applied to raw materials is what creates wealth.
Furthermore, injecting money in the middle of the economy, as they do, provides less benefit than monetizing raw materials at the base of the economy and getting the full generation of national income as the raw materials move through the economy on their way to the end consumer. The issue being faced all over the world is a shortage of income, that shortage being replaced with debt and poverty.
Some say this is incompetence on the part of the central bankers, finance ministers, and politicians. I think a lot of it is due to ignorance. Many don’t understand how an economy really works. But I am one of those cynical souls who also believe it is maliciousness on part of those at the top of the pyramid. They are guided by their plans to consolidate control. I have my doubts that they are as incompetent as they seem.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We can defeat deflation by applying labor to our natural resources and putting parity prices (prices in balance with the rest of the economy) on that production, such that as those resources cascade through society (by the trade turn), when they finally reach the end consumer, the consumers have enough income, or money, to buy the production. It’s elegant, and it works. We’ve had it in our history.
What’s the rub? When the consumers start to earn their way, there is less demand to rent the banks’ money. See the problem?
And let me say this. And we all know this. The central bank system, the debt money monopolists, whatever you want to call them, have done well to take advantage of the public’s ignorance about the difference between wealth and money. They don’t teach that in school, at any level.
And that is on purpose. I know. That has to change.
Regionswork,
I am glad you brought up the moral aspect of this economic mess.
If you search the Bible you’ll see Jesus talking about lending to people without expecting to get paid back, storing up treasure in heaven instead of on earth, trusting in God’s provision and not worrying about what we will eat or wear.
Cheating another person of his/her goods, or wealth, is still not moral. It is a devaluing of that person. It is not love.
Raul,
Yes. It can get worse.
Trump, in some ways, is an enigma. It’s hard to know what the outcome of him and his phenomenon will be. Here are some of the things I have heard people say:
“Trump is really an agent of Hilary. He’s agreed to throw the election to her.”
“Trump really doesn’t want the presidency. He’s just doing this for himself and his brand.”
“Trump is really a liberal, he has no business running as a Republican. We can’t trust him.”
“The Republican establishment will never let him have the nomination. At the convention, they’ll use every trick they can think of to get ‘their guy’ nominated.”
“If Trump does get ‘stiffed’ by the establishment, he will run as an independent and throw the election to Hillary.”
“In doesn’t matter if Trump is a conservative or not, if he gets two or three things done that the country needs, it will be better than what we’ll get from Hillary or Bernie.”And then I heard this today:
“If Trump gets elected, the powers that be will assassinate him before the inauguration. The country will be thrown in chaos, trying to figure out who will be president then.”
Got that?
Hotrod,
Exactly. One could say that’s why we no longer enforce that policy, which, by the way, is still on the books. USDA even still has a guy or two in their basement calculating parity prices on a regular basis.
All I feel like I can do is educate people about it. Frustrating.
Rapier,
I just had to read that Bloomberg article, because, I have to admit, I didn’t know who Englander was.
Wow, Keynesian propaganda is not dead, is it? Cold fusion? Wow, again. If I were a physicist, I might be offended by a currency strategist using such terms.
Anyways, you are exactly right in that it is money, otherwise known as a claim on wealth, which stimulates people to purchase, or trade. Never heard anyone tell me confidence burned a hole in their pocket. Maybe I just don’t talk to the right people.
How about we try this: support the parity price of raw materials, which means that the prices are in proper relationship to the rest of the economy. That generates enough income at that base level such that when it multiplies through the trade turn, there is enough national income for consumers to purchase their own production. In other words, put enough of our money (capital) reserves at the starting point of the economy so it can crank up enough velocity such that the consumers can spend earnings instead of “confidence”. Some people call this “monetizing” a basket of raw materials. Let’s forget about injecting debt somewhere in the middle of the thing, and then asking that money to be paid back, and then with interest on top of it. We’re so done with that.
What? The debt money monopolists won’t like that you say? You mean when people actually start to earn their way, they won’t want to rent the monopolists’ money as much? Clicking my fingers. Darn. What was I thinking?
Pardon me. I just had this strange feeling that I need to inspect the break lines of my car. That debt money monopolist financed auto of mine is getting old, you know. 😉
Rapier,
What you say is similar to what I was pointing out in an earlier thread. The powers that be (aka debt money monopolists) want the system to collapse so they can have the cover to bring about their next plan of consolidating wealth and power. I don’t know what their next thing is. They don’t show their plans to you and me. I know there has to be a plan. These things don’t happen on a whim. Who thinks the whole Federal Reserve System came about that way? These things are long thought out.
On the flip side, I was intrigued about what another poster pointed out in the same thread. That person surmised that the malicious powers-that-be will die under the weight of their own evil, once things spiral out of control. It reminds me of the famous line in Stars Wars when Princess Leia addresses Commander Tarkin: “The more you tighten your grip Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
I am also reminded of another movie, Disney’s flick–A Bug’s Life. Hopper, the head tyrannical grasshopper, has to explain something to his crony band of grasshoppers about the power they hold over the ants: “You let one ant stand up to us, then they might all stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they figure that out, there goes our way of life. It’s not about food. It’s about keeping those ants in line!”
The question is, in our current reality, will there be a revolution? And will it be peaceful, or bloody? And when?
Trivium,
I too was going to write how I don’t believe it is incompetence on the part of the central bankers in regards to the policies they enact and the institutions they create. As you say, it is pure malice on the part of the greedy, power hungry people that have put the central banks systems in place. I would go so far as to say they want the system to implode, so that, once again, they can ride in on their white horses and create the next bigger, more global debt racket institutions for the ignorant masses (aka debt slaves).
It gets tiring to hear that these people don’t know what they are doing. It is similar to when people say that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he is doing. Horse hockey! He knows exactly what he is doing.
Furthermore, it was downright disgusting to watch Rep. Sean Duffy give Janet Yellen a hard time at her dog and pony show this week. As if Janet Yellen and the Debt Money Monopoly command center is going to heed anybody in Congress. B.S. theater, I call it.
Remember, debt is slavery. Debt is death. True freedom is everlasting life.
In regards to Steve Keen’s article, our economies have become dysfunctional because our consumers don’t have enough income to consume their own production. Debt has replaced that shortage of income. The shortage starts with less than parity prices at the raw materials level. That’s where the economy starts. That shortage cascades throughout the whole economy. With raw material (commodity) prices being as low as they are today, we certainly are on the deflationary road. As we know, a depression is a manifestation of severe deflation. You still have the natural resources. You still have the labor. But trade grinds down like a slow death.
We can avoid the booms and busts by maintaining income through a balanced, fair trade economy. However, those that profit off debt and maintain their power through it, don’t seem to want it that way.
