Re: Voice of the people

["John Gelles" <indexed-savings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"The concept (and all the other approaches that
entail government spending in deficit) will have
to address in detail exactly how money is to be
spent. Spend it into a hole and the experiment
fails. I have asked this question in the forums
many times."  -- Gary Santos to PKT, August 03,
                            2003 10:13 PM

Of course any plan by government (or private
firms) stands or falls on its detailed execution.

Yet every plan must be willing to vary its details,
as implementation moves out of the past and
into the unpredictable future.  And many good
plans are heavy on objectives and light on
details that will come into play as the future
unfolds.

I think Gary is wrong to see every plan as the
same with respect to "deficits":  It is true that
greenbacks spent without owing any payback
to creditors (of principal or interest) will result
under my plan in an increase in private savings
that government promises will not lose any
purchasing power if used to buy necessities.

        But that promise may well be reasonable
and believable -- and so may be supported by a
popular majority of voters and a majority of
their congressmen.

In all events, PKT, almost to a man, rejects this
sort of plan. Only the few social credit and basic
income types support similar debt-free money
schemes. The rest want money to be issued only
by licensed and central banks as loans that carry
a rate of interest above zero.

My author of choice, Stewart Chase, another
accountant, wrote of debt=free money injections
in 1934 and 1948. I never argue from authority
like Chase, Keynes or Lerner. I mention the names
only in passing.

Debt-free, tax-free money must be presented as a
logical possibility and then prove in practice that
it works..

The details Gary asks for are that spending and
lending debt-free supplemental money will require:
    (a) prudent honest management,
    (b) success in automation to create a low cost
          high suply of necessary goods and services,
    (c) success in motivating people to work at hard
          and dangerous jobs in an economy that offers
          more economic security than people have in
          the past enjoyed..

The chances of success in these three things is not
very high. So Gary is right to be skeptical. But the
reward for fear of trying (because success will be
hard to achieve) is the world that Bernie Sanders
described.

Gary should supply the details he thinks are missing
-- with the warning that he is sure the details are
not possible to achieve. He can then reject the plan
and admit that we must wait for a better plan that
someone else may be able to write tomorrow.

John Gelles