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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: MONETARY: Monetary Reform -- Reply to "John Medaille"
[Ryan] Comments inserted. >From: John Médaille >Okay. How are they written down? [Ryan] Will you please restate the question? I don't understand it. Generally, I'll say this: Most numbers written down into account books are quite arbitrary. Social Credit seeks to rationalize the process. ---------- > >>---------- >> >> >> cost of production is fully met when that production is >>completed and ready for use. Fortunately, the defect in financial >>accountancy which leads to an exponential deficiency of >>purchasing-power relative to financial cost provides the the >>opportunity to address the problem. The issue is the ownership of >>credit, the charging of interest on money created as debt and >>fundamentally the premature cancellation of purchasing-power in >>respect of repayment of capital loans (the reinvestment of saving >>creates new costs without creating new purchasing-power and creates >>a deficiency in a similar matter). The consumer is charged, >>rightly, with capital depreciation but wrongly not credited with >>capital appreciation. Major Clifford Hugh Douglas dealt with all >>these problems beginning as early as 1918. We should be concerned >>not about a just wage but about providing sufficiency of income via >>a Just Price (jus pretium) a modern interpretation upon which >>Douglas based his analysis an! >>d p >>rescriptions--a concept upon which the Church has a locus standi. >>A number of Catholic thinkers were apprised of Douglas's "Social >>Credit" and were strong supporters. >> >> >>[Médaille] Could you be more specific about this last point. Which >>"Catholic thinkers" would you recommend? >>---------- >> >> The ideal price level is zero, >> >> >>[Médaille] Really? Why? I certainly don't want to sell my services >>for nothing. >>---------- >> >>[Ryan] Wally's point here is not Social Credit, strictly speaking, >>but it is not necessarily inconsistent with Social Credit. He is >>speaking of the effective price to the consumer in the hypothetical >>future where robotic production has displaced human labor in its >>totality at the theoretical limit. You would not have to sell your >>services for nothing. If you sell your services for X, the price >>to the consumer is zero if the compensated price rebate paid to you >>+ the consumer dividend = X. >>Everything is free? [Ryan] At the theoretical limit, yes, in terms of cost to the end user. It's related to the engineering concept of efficiency. We'll never get there, but we can get closer to it than we're at now. ---------- > >>---------- >> >> the ideal employment rate is zero and the Just Price is >>financial price times the mean production rate over the mean >>consumption rate in a given period. >> >> >>[Médaille] What are the mechanics of this? For example, is there a >>gov't agency that sets "just price"? Or is this just a theoretical >>paradigm? And how are these "mean" rates computed? >>---------- >> >>[Ryan] The Just Price is just to the producer and just to the >>consumer. This means that the producer can recover his costs of >>production and the consumer can purchase all that the producer can >>reasonably produce. The absolute numerical value assigned to the >>price is determined by the market. > >But does the market actually price things in this way? ISTM that it>works by supply and demand. What am I missing here? [Ryan] Again, I don't quite follow the question and would hope that you will restate it. Also, I'm not familiar with the term "ISTM." I don't remember seeing it before. Here, too, all I can offer is a generalized answer. Social Credit is not an intrusion or intervention into the market whatsoever. It is an accounting adjustment - really, a set of adjustment mechanisms - to make it work better. There's nothing especially novel about the idea. Accountants make adjustments all the time. They've always done so. Bookkeepers for firms make adjustments. The Federal Reserve makes adjustments for the whole economy. What Social Credit hopes to accomplish is to put the adjustment process on a more scientific footing. ---------- > >> The mean production rate and mean consumption rate are brought >>into equality through the Compensated Price and Dividend. >>---------- >> >> The money issued as debt (created) by the banking system >>belongs neither to the banks nor the government but to the >>community and should be issued (for consumption) without debt in >>the form of consumer dividends and compensation to prices. >> >> >>[Médaille] Again, how exactly does this work? Is is like a reverse >>sales tax? Do we get a check in the mail (from whom?)? >>---------- >> >>[Ryan] I don't like the term "without debt." It infers that money >>is something physical that circulates perpetually. Real money is a >>contract that disappears when its terms are fulfilled. That is the >>ticket or "chartal" concept of money. >> >>Yes, the Compensated Price is analogous to a reverse sales tax. It >>could be a check. There are other possibilities. > >Okay, but how will it work? Will this be some gov't dept. that fixes>prices and "consumer dividends"? [Ryan] Prices are not fixed. With certain exceptions, not far different than the exceptions now, everyone can sell whatever they are selling for whatever price they want to sell it, assuming they can find a willing buyer. The Social Credit adjustments are applied macro-economically, to the economy as a whole. Presumably, someone will have to determine the rate of price compensation and the amount of the per capita dividend. That does not necessarily have to be the government, depending on how it is defined. There are many possibilities. Nor does it have to be determined exactly. There should be checks and balances to deter abuse. Really, the structure is already there. What needs to be changed is the policy of those in control of the structure. They have all the tools to accomplish the job. > > >John C. Médaille > >"A dead thing can go with the stream... >but only a living thing can go against it." > -G. K. Chesterton >http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm >john@medaille.comProtect your PC - Click here for McAfee.com VirusScan Online
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