Re: Reforming the Language of Money

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The math is actually quite simple.  A guaranteed income of $20,000 per
capita for an economy of 259 million will cost $5 trillion per year.
The US GDP is in excess of $9 trillion.  We don't know what the GNP is
with factor income from abroad, possibly another $2 trillion.  But if
income creates demand and demand creates supply, there will be a booming
economy with a minimum guaranteed per capita income of $20K or $80K for
a family of four.

The rest is obfuscation.

Henry C.K. Lliu

John Gelles wrote:

>     o  Money talks.
>
>     o  Money is more like language than any other thing
>         you would compare it to.
>
>     o  Money arrives spontaneously whenever war and
>         murder not longer serve to get what you want.
>
>     o  People get so used to money--if it works--that
>         you can use it ahead of producing what it will buy
>         --as well as afterward.  Using it ahead of time is
>         what credit is all about.
>
>     o  Owning money imposes the risk that it will be
>         worthless except as paper, metal, or memory.
>         Owning debt is the same--it may become worth
>         no more than air.
>
>     o  Listening the the commission to strengthen social
>         security headed by Parsons and Moynihan is
>         like listening to Alice in Wonderland. They are
>         constantly talking of money as money and rarely
>         as money connected to the things it can buy.
>
>     o  If the pensioners and pensioners-to-be of this
>         nation could speak money as the language of
>         what their pension will by buy--they might
>         wake up to the importance of production and
>         price. They might see the hope of automation
>         -- and despair of actuarial accounting as a
>         lone God of Reason in this political game.
>
>     o  Some on the left hope and see now that war
>         has changed so much of the right's agenda--
>         that the Bush Parsons Moynihan commission
>         can be counted out  I certainly hope so.
>
>     o  Yet on the left are some with the crazy notion
>         we should leave the system--with its regressive
>         high tax on wages and work--alone.  What is
>         the matter with them?
>
>     o  To strengthen social security we must insist on
>         entitled (voluntary) retirement no later than 60
>         years of age and a pension no less than auto-
>         mated production can afford--remembering
>         that deprivation after retirement is not
>         necessary to motivate work.
>
>         In other words, in today's numbers, we need
>         a minimum pension of $1,500 a month for
>         every mouth to feed--with free full medical
>         care and a funeral.
>
>     o  The notion that the money for these pensions
>         should come from payroll taxes or investment
>         accounts is nuts. The money will come from
>         future production of the things it will buy.
>
>         To organize that future production today's
>         economy must be a mixed one--of production
>         for profit in open markets--and of subsidized
>         production and investment, as necessary.
>
>         How do you organize the subsidized part of
>         the system?  The same way we sent men to
>         the moon and back.  Only, instead of most
>         taxes, indexed unloaned savings may work
>         better to prevent inflation--and keep up
>         production at the same time.
>
>         John Gelles