Poverty, Deflation, Policy

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

            "The pathology of poverty involves social
             despair rather than absolute income alone."
                        -- Henry C.K. Liu, today on PKT

            "The crunch is that price deflation puts every
              indebted trader in trouble. His nominal income
              falls, but his nominal debts remain the same.
              That is what matters, and that is why deflation
              is to be feared far, far more than inflation."
                         -- Geoffrey Gardiner, today pn PKT

            Starting with the wisdom expressed above, we
            search for a political approach to remedy.

            The pathology of wealth appears to be as mean
            as that of poverty. It blinds the fortunate to the
            need for reform How else explain the persistence
            of slavery, Jim Crow, denial of women's human
            rights, child labor and poverty, some of which
            took ages to finally confront and repair, much of
            which remains a stain on our culture.

            The need to rationalize bargain prices with
            sustainable production involves macroeconomic
            planning for subsidies, interest, taxes and tax relief,
            and plain talk to voters in democratic capitalistic
            nations.
                        The need to encourage the poor and
            educate the rich would be met, in small but
            possibly effective part, by Saylor's free internet
            university.  Part of that university exists in the
            form of PKT internet list (this forum).

            It would not be a mistake to apply some text
            mining and decision support theory to the
            construction of a plain language agenda to turn
            the wisdom of people already convened here
            (who can do it) -- to eventually reside on the
            many websites already under our members'
            guidance.  These might then be a part of the
            free internet university that was prepared to
            deal effectively with the pathologies of wealth
            and poverty and the paradox of credit and
            affordability.

                  John Gelles
                 email    1944@xxxxxxxx
                     url    http://1944.org