Fix what's wrong

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

Is there anything wrong with the coalitions' plans for Iraq
and Afghanistan?  The plans say the people of these nations
want political freedom -- and that political freedom cannot
exist with free enterprise for producers and decent shopping
for consumers.

In other words, private property and human rights, both, are
what we offer in place of totalitarian rulers and ideology
(and hate) for breakfast, lunch and supper.

Executing the plan, we are unable to deliver the jobs and
the shopping we're selling. Why?  Because we are unable to
deliver them to a great many people at home.

Both America and England and the rest of the UN member-
ship owe a lot more jobs and more shopping to the workers
and soldiers who make our system as good as it is.

What is our problem? We know we can produce more and
pollute less.  All it would take is more money.  And we know
money is the least of our worries -- if we can insure domestic
tranquility -- including organizing a fair day's work for a fair
day's pay, all over these lands.

The hang-up is scarce money, low wages, not a job for every
willing worker, and the absence of the freedom from want
we won in WW II.

We now fight again for freedom from fear -- when the root
cause of the struggle is that we never delivered the freedom
from want that has been within our grasp for nearly a century
now.

Fools say inflation will destroy production if we produce
all we can.  Yet the more we produce the more people we
can pay high wages  IF only we gear purchasing subsidies
to producers' output and consumers' needs.

Why should tomorrow's purchasing power be hobbled by
money not geared to the correct variables.  Money geared
to debt is only a beginning. A lot more money is needed --
geared to the highest non-inflationary price we have to
maintain.  Unmanaged commodity pricing, like what
happens to coffee and cars, puts pressure on wages that
keeps nations poor forever. But rational prices cannot
exist without extra money designed to achieve them.

If we don't move fast to employ with decent purchasing
power the people we want to support democracy we shall
soon lose democracy first, the environment next, and the
liberty we pretend to champion -- but are afraid to
examine in the light of experience.

John Gelles