Sidney Lanier says:
Sidney Lanier SNAP is a subsidy program for food producers and distributors. A regular subsidy to individual households, as Switzerland is proposing and as both Nixon and McGovern supported in the ’72 election, would be more equitable and efficient. But, that would violare the fundamental prejudice that people have no money because they do not know how to manage it. Which of course is contrary to the reality that all dollars come out of the U.S. Treasury and, if people have none, it is because they were given none from the public purse and have not been clever enough to steal some. See, the problem with paper and electronic dollars is that they are inedible, undrinkable, unwearable and non-protective. Indeed, unlike the gold and silver, of which they used to be made, they cannot even be turned into artifacts or baubles which someone might value more. A cross of gold would be more useful than a pallet of Benjamins. Personally, I think anyone with an eleemosynary impulse should start carrying some Benjamins and hand them out more or less at random to people who will spend them and prime the economic pump. The dollar’s current has been slowing since about 1991. See that graph?
Category Archives: Economy
Deforesting Glynn
Even ants know to provide care
What’s on my mind?
WHAT’S ON MY MIND?
FENDIG SIGNS.
If we had fens on the coast of Georgia, that’s what the Fendigs would be digging up. But, since we’ve got marshes, that’s where they dig and cut up trees so their bilboards, which stick out like sore thumbs, won’t be missed.
Continue reading
Boys and their Toys on Sea Island
On the shore at Sea Island. While the tracks will disappear with the next tide, the sands, compressed by heavy equipment, won’t be supporting organisms for some time. It’s no wonder the dunes never regenerate.
Right to Work
“Right to work” should be rephrased as “Right to Obey.” The proponents are not interested in products, but in obedience. The recent emphasis on “workforce development” points to the direction they are heading. How to force people to do what they are told. Apparently, the example of starving humans is not having the desired effect. The crash of 2008 did not have the desired effect, either. Although many people were removed from the labor force, data suggest that the “recovery” has not brought them back.
Continue reading
On Sanctions
“Sanctions” as deployed by the United States to supposedly punish the bad behavior of other nation states are problematic. First of all, “to sanction” used to mean to approve of or permit. Using the word as a dysphemism is disingenuous.
Continue reading
Capitol Hill wants to undo Dodd/Frank. Duh!
The financial class is convinced their woes are the result of rules that make their wheeling and dealing accountable to supervisors. They refuse to accept that the problem lies in the fact that they are dealing in worthless stuff and the effort to create artificial value by rationing the distribution of dollars is bound to fail.
Continue reading
The obnoxious one percent.
With subversives, it is never about what it seems to be about. The object of tax cuts is not to affect revenues to the Treasury or gift anyone. The object of tax cuts is to maintain the fiction that Congress is only responsible for the collection of currency NOT ITS DISTRIBUTION. This is a fiction that has been assiduously maintained for a hundred years. It started with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank BY CONGRESS, based on the rationale that Congress is irresponsible and cannot be counted on to manage the currency. So, we will let banks do it so they can use it to reward their friends and insure that the undesirables stay poor. When Nixon severed the tie to gold, which had provided a rationale for why money was scarce, the rationing got worse. Why? Because Congress relies on the financiers to fill their campaign coffers and stint the competition.
Continue reading
Warren A. Stephens has a new gig
Warren Stephens, the Lord of Little Rock, got his start in banking as the heir of a couple of guys who got rich peddling bonds. More recently, he made a stab at communications by acquiring a bunch of failing papers. But the media emoire did not blossom. Similarly, his entrance into the world of recreation by building a new golf course when the sport was going belly up, did not fulfill expectations. So, he’s going back to basics by touting capitalism.
Continue reading