| Subject: | [socialcredit] Smoothing the cycle | | Date: | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:35:04 (-0800) | | From: | Jeffery Smith <jjs @.........org>
|
On Feb 27, 2006, at 11:47 PM, Joe Thomson wrote:
>
> I think many companies have a mix of both short term and long term
> debt, and this would be considered quite healthy so long as the
> company was profitable, or had a positive cash flow, and both types of
> debt were being serviced as per the loan agreements.
Yet, with the positive cash flow or profits, why not save and re-invest
in itself instead of borrow and incur interests? Tax favors might
answer that.
> when the businessman has the opportunity to use his facilities more
> fully, and produce not only a profit for the banker from his
> borrowing, but also an additional, (and often larger), profit for
> himself as a result of the additional business that borrowing enabled,
> what in the name of all that's Holy is wrong with that?
"Wrong" might not be the right word. What's curious is that a business
chooses first to indebt itself, not to save or sell stock or whatever.
While some business is seasonal - like farming - an unjust economy
might exaggerate any seasonal swings. To compare, a transit system or
system of power plants must be built for peak use, but sits idle the
rest of the time, which is not efficient at all. If business could be
smoothed out thru-out the year by some reform equivalent to shrinking
the workweek so people could their two to 20 hours any time, you'd not
have "rush hour" and lose all that waste. What could make it easier to
turn a profit steadily thru-out the year might be things like geonomics
- replacing taxes with land dues and replacing subsidies with rent
dividends. Not paying taxes on profits while getting a share of
society's surplus lets people spread out both their production and
their consumption.
> most 'community currencies' I've witnessed seem to have very limited
> acceptability. Would your 'site tax' be payable in one?
Burlington Vermont is, or is becoming, the first to accept its local
currency for local taxes.
> We would be seriously limited, though, if they were the ONLY sources
> of credit available to every business.
Rather than limit, let's head the other way and simultaneously reduce
need for debt and distribute surplus justly.
SMITH, Jeffery J., President, Forum on Geonomics
7536 SE Milwaukie Av, Portland Oregon 97202 USA
503/232-1337; jjs@geonomics.org; www.geonomics.org
Share Earth's worth to prosper and conserve.
|
Smoothing the cycl
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