Re: Subsidizing the consumer.

[Hyman Blumenstock <hystock@xxxxxxxxx>]

Harry Veeder wrote:

> > But the price system has no other purpose than the distribution of
> > SCARCE Goods (Food and Food derived) in order to specifically DENY
> > access to those lowest in status, just because there is not enough.
> > Money is a part of the price system.
>
> Not exactly. Ideally the money system and the price system
> should be treated as two interconnected but distinct information
> systems. It is true that the price system requires a money system, but
> the *operation*  the latter,ie. the creation, distribution and
> destruction of money, need not be governed by the *performance* of
> the former as it has unfortunately become in recent decades.
>
> Nobody on this list seems willing to entertain the possiblity that a
> controlled and consumer oriented injection of new money (freshly
> "minted") is a viable tool for correcting gross inequities in wealth
> distribution. Call it a consumer subsidy.

What is properly termed "wealth" (Land, labor and production) is at two
levels of importance.  Uppermost (along with Air and Water, fortunately
abundant enough to have so far escaped what would have been an
unfortunate economic interest and treatment) is Food alone, as a literal
"staff of life."  The fact of its scarcity during man's sojourn on
earth, has made it of economic interest, and is in fact the progenesis
of the Doctrinaire Economic Philosophy of Scarcity itself.  An example
of a thankfully only momentary lapse in Air abundance, occurred in Tokyo
not too long ago when excessive pollution created a new economic product
for the otherwise obsolete marketplace, canisters of breathable air.  I
suppose that such pollution would be taken as an advantage by the
Doctrinaire philosopher.

All else that we call GDP has come to be included within the unfortunate
attention of Economics. GDP would not have been created except for the
advent of Food abundance, enough to be able to divert well FED labor
from Food production to the creation of GDP. That is the rationale for
the Industrial Revolution.  The point is that though there may be
scarcities of some GDP, the fact that Food has become theoreticlly
freely available, free of COST, makes all GDP also theoretically FREE of
COST.  That is so because COST of anything is an ancient measure of how
scarce Food supply is compared to the entire populations otherwise
limited capacity to consume Food.  Once adequately Fed, everyone's labor
for producing anything is already fully paid for, in advance.  Any
scarcities of some GDP are easily handled by the mechanism of time and
place sharing, but neither Price nor Money need any longer be a factor.

Scarce GDP includes such things as library books, roadways,
communications means, transportation means, and a host of other things.
However, ALL payments now required by the price system and the use of
Money, are solely to see to the access to the Food supply of whomever
has anything to do with the production of anything.  Why not provide
access to everyone for just being, and eliminate the need for the
overcomplication of a price system and its inherent evils of omission of
access to somebody, that is the direct cause of human misery and our
attendant Social Problems.  We all prefer the motivation of Self Esteem
to get things done, along with maximum quality or performance, rather
than the threat to our Security of "earn a living or die" which
generates resentment and shoddy performance, including Politics.
>
> > If we don't need to deny anyone
> > access, what is wrong with the storing and communicating information
> > that is currently being used in our commercial practices?  Therefore
> > Money and the price system are old dragons no longer of intrinsic
> > importance -- really for the last century.
> >
>
> I don't agree. The price system will remain an effective tool for
> distributing those goods and services which are *scarce* and in demand.
> However, because the price system functions best when it is unregulated,
> many abundant and essential goods and services will convey price information
> about the scarcity of other non-essential goods and services. In
> otherwords, the price system, as with any technology, is not perfect.
>
> When an otherwise excellent system comes with major shortcommings do you
> immediately ditch it? Usually you try to keep the system intact by
> developing a set corrective measures. Only when the corrective measures
> themsleves become too complicated and costly does one begin to
> contemplate the value of hanging onto the orginal system.
>
> >From a social engineering perspective, I think a system of consumer
> subsidies would be a good corrective measure. The real problem is not the
> price system or even the money system, but our political system.
>
> Harry Veeder

The political system (Bad Management) is a direct result of the Economic
system that demands that one must look after his own welfare and
Security by threatening it with the demand of "earn a living" or "earn a
death."  Quality of performance is completely put aside as the
antithesis of having to just plain "survive," "or else."  It is this
unnecessary imperative that is the progenesis of misery, crime,
corruption, POLITICS, violence, WAR.  It is a deadly cancer upon the
Body Politic, and it really ought to be excised now and completely.

However, there is a less traumatic approach, that will alleviate all the
evil symptoms immediately, and in due course eliminate the cancer.  That
is, in view of the dwindling demand for our over supply of Food and much
of GDP, as is evident by ever growing Unemployment, create new jobs by
commissioning the private sector at "cost plus," the task of Restoring
the Environment, Space Programs, Pursuit of Knowledge, Anything,
focussing on the total population to assure that not one person is left
out of being trained and assigned to a decent job suited to each
individual, with a decent wage in line with current prices.

It can all be funded by Deficit Spending, with the understanding that a
false Inflation is now deliberately contrived by the price fixing
function of the Federal Reserve, and that the National Debt is really a
meaningless fiction that has no meaningful Creditor, as is the taxation
of imaginary Money from other than the currently legitimate Money
source, the Federal Reserve.

Hyman