Recipe: Grilled Green Cheese and Baloney

[timework@xxxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

INGREDIENTS:

ONE LUMP OF GREEN CHEESE

  Unemployment develops . . . because people want the moon; --  men cannot
  be employed when the object of desire (i.e. money) is something which
  cannot be produced and the demand for which cannot be readily choked off.
  There is no remedy but to persuade the public that green cheese is
  practically the same thing and to have a green cheese factory
  (i.e. a central bank) under public control.
  -- J.M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,
1936, p. 235

ONE SLICE OF BALONEY

  In the very short-run there is of course a limit to the number of jobs, which
  is set by the level of aggregate demand. But aggregate demand in Europe is
  rising and will continue to do so until it hits its long-run upper limit. This
  limit is set not by demand but by the effective supply of employable
labour. And
  if the supply of labour rises the number of jobs responds. If history
tells any
  lesson, it is that.
  --  T. Boeri, R. Layard and S. Nickell, Welfare-to-Work and the Fight Against
      Long-term Unemployment, a report to Prime Ministers Blair and D'Alema and
      the Council of Europe, March 2000
      http://www.palazzochigi.it/approfondimenti/sindacati/inglese.html

THE GRILLING:

Inflation develops because giving people green cheese just makes them want
more. There is no remedy but to persuade the public that baloney is
practically the same thing and to have a baloney factory (i.e. the economics
conventional wisdom) under peer review and generous corporate and state
sponsorship. If history tells any lesson, it is that in the very short-run
the number of jobs can be augmented by increasing the effective supply of
employable labour and thus depressing wages. The long-run upper limit to
this strategy is that what people actually desire is not a "number of jobs"
but money (i.e. bread). In the US, the green cheese factory reopened when it
became obvious that the demand for baloney was falling in proportion to the
rise in its supply (i.e., "unemployment develops because people want _the
moon_ [not baloney]"). But inflation develops because giving people green
cheese just makes them want more. . .

Seconds, anyone?
Tom Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Bowen Island, BC