(John Rawson wrote;-
) Straight to your second point.
Because I can't build roads to a sufficient standard, can't bribe my own
police, run border controls or build hospitals.
(Joe replies:- ) Could
you currently do those things through financing them
from straight taxation without there being an increase in overall ‘debt’
in the country as a whole? If you could do that,
would your country not be in debt up to its collective eyeballs, and beyond? Isn’t
it more that you CAN’T do that?
Nor can any other modern country?
Look at
your ‘taxes’. If they’re
deducted from labour
‘incomes’ (of individuals) they’re already included in the ‘prices’ of consumables. Since it’s the ‘gross’
income before the tax is deducted that forms part of cost, not the just the ‘net’
pay you take home. If there’s
already a ‘disparity’ between the overall rate of income generation and that of price
generation due primarily to ongoing ‘labour displacement’ and a falling
change in the ratio of A to A+B, what
happens?
Taxes
are much beloved by Bankers, (long as they’re not singled out unduly to
pay them!) , because they remove immediate purchasing
power from the hands of consumers. And making ‘money’ scarce in this
manner tends to increase its ‘value’ in relation to what it will
buy. It makes the Banker’s income,
his ‘interest’’ which he will receive over the life of the
loan, more valuable to him, even if the ‘interest rate’ on loans
being made may decline. (This is the same as with any other merchant ~
the decline in price (of ‘money’, in this case), broadens the
market. You can’t ‘profit’
until you ‘sell’. Nor can
the Banker, until he ‘loans’.
Bankers are normally ‘deflationists’, as Douglas told us.
To us
though, even if ‘taxes’ were supposed to keep consumer prices ‘down’
(which they really don’t), they just make it more difficult for us to
acquire what we need and want. Since we
don’t have the ‘money’ necessary to take advantage of acquiring
consumables to the extent it’s been removed from us by taxation. Unless we ‘borrow’ it, as ‘consumer
credit’, that is. And the
businesses nowadays couldn’t exist without that. The only real answer to this is to augment
consumer incomes with debt-free CONSUMER credits sufficient to maintain A in constant ratio to A+B through time. Taxes might then be for the provision of ‘services’
best provided through ‘Government’, and with the restoration of
adequate purchasing power
directly to consumers through crediting them fully with ongoing ‘capital
appreciation’ through the CPD and ND, (including that of Government
infrastructure, if it’s sensible and useful and increases the ‘real
credit’ of the community), could be restored to that proper function to
the extent they’re still necessary.
And I believe very strongly that the function of
hospitals, for example, is to care for the sick, not to make a profit for entrepeneurs. That's borne out in England where just
making the cleaning of hospitals come into that category, so that the aim is no
longer to keep hospitals clean, has resulted in periodical closures because of
"H bugs" etc.
(Joe replies;-) There are several interesting issues
here. On the surface, on a ‘moral’
basis, I agree with you. It seems to me
to be ‘morally’ wrong to believe there should be anyone ‘profiting’
from the misfortune of anyone else’s injury or illness. But ‘economically’ is a ‘doctor’
also an ‘entrepreneur’, or is he not? If he cannot make a “price for his
product in excess of his costs” ~ a ‘profit’, actually ~
could he remain in practice long? Would
he remain in practice long? And would
there really be any incentive to enter medicine as a career in the first place?
To go through all the training, to work
the hours, to do that very kind of demanding work, to assume the very real ‘liability’
(not to mention the ‘legal’ one that might follow!) that in trying to ‘do
no harm’ a mis-diagnosis, or ‘off-day’
with the scalpel or other tools of the trade might cause?
‘Altruism’
there may be in many of us, and give me a doctor who has a genuine interest in his
profession and treating his patient over one who’s just there ‘for
the bucks’ any time I’ve need of one, but we certainly can’t ‘demand’
someone practice medicine just solely ‘for the good of mankind’,
and restrict him to no more than his physical sustenance for so doing , can we? Would
any of us do the same thing, day in and day out, for that? Maybe there are those amongst us who would. But should any of us ‘be
forced’ to do the same thing for that? ‘Socialists’
seem to think so. Which begs the
question, “What else do they think anyone else should be ‘forced’
to do?”
For if that ‘policy’ is to be applied to ‘doctors’,
it certainly isn’t going to end there. Now to go beyond the MD’s themselves,
the business of cleaning hospitals should most certainly be done by those who
know how to do it, and are paid wages commensurate with the very real
risks they incur in pursuing that occupation.
We’ve witnessed the very same thing in ‘privatisation’
here, and it is both a false saving, and fraught with the same problems you
allude to. The ‘problem’ is
trying, once again, to ‘re-distribute’ an
insufficiency. And it can’t be solved the way current governments are
trying to pursue it.
Now to look at another side of the issue, ‘profit’
in modern double-entry accountancy is not analogous to the ‘cash’
profit that might ensue in a simple ‘barter’ type of transaction
where ‘money’ is actually being used as a ‘medium of exchange’. Rather ‘profit’, or change in it,
is an indication of the correctness of some entrepreneurial action. And I believe this has some application in
regards to ‘medicine’ and the provision of overall ‘medical
services’. In North America there has been a long-standing debate over the
virtues of ‘public’ ( supposedly
non-profit ) medical services versus ‘private’ (for profit)
ones. One thing that seems to be overlooked in the
debate by those on the ‘public’ side is the ‘patient’. Doctors don’t treat ‘disease’,
they treat ‘patients’. When
you try to pre-determine what ‘diseases’ need to be treated by ‘bureaucratic’
fiat instead of actual ‘patient’ necessities you’re bound to
get inefficient application of available human and physical resources, higher
costs, and endless waiting lists that can only be shortened by those on them
expiring. And, from observation, that’s
exactly what we do get with ‘socialised medicine’. ‘Profit’,
it seems to me, and regarding it in the ‘double-entry’ sense’
could actually be beneficial in determining just what ‘services’
are most in demand, and in attempting to satiate that demand. Presently, there will problems with this
approach. But not from
‘profit’, per se, but from the current deceptive ‘money
system’ that a proper application of ‘genuine’ Social Credit
could correct.
And dealing with your third point, you still have not
demonstrated any mechansm to prevent retailers
gradually increasing the price, steadily subsidised all the way at 2% as it
climbs. Please don't quote competition, which only works to hold prices
down when there is difficulty selling goods etc. If all your timber was going
out as fast as it was produced, even a good honest man like you would begin to wonderr if all his hard work didn't really merit a little
better return, in slightly higher prices. And believe me, the timber
industry in NZ has had the structure of a jungle in the past, and I can't see
it having changed too much.
Is there not always ‘difficulty’
in selling goods when the capacity to produce them exceeds the ability to
consume them? And we have to ‘pay’
for the provision of that ‘capacity’, but we’re not ‘credited’
fully financially for it’s creation? Or is
the “progress of the industrial arts a complete fraud?” Most retailers are interested in moving
product. They could put up the price and
wait for a buyer who’ll meet it, but while they’re waiting they’ve
got ‘costs’ of their own that are ongoing. And the ‘profit’ they might make
selling a very few items, though it may well be larger per item
than that of the merchant who moves his goods in volume for a lower price, is diminishing from
these ‘costs’ each day that product sits unsold. The real ‘competition’ generally doesn’t
come from those who do the same thing you do, only charge the public ‘more’
for it, but from those who do the same thing you do and charge the public ‘less’.
If you were making a pile of money from
growing Callas and other tropicals, how long before every other Northland Kiwi with a little piece
of your Island’s real estate and a horticultural bent would be trying the
same thing? And what happens to the
market then? If you’re
not making a pile of money from growing them, why not? To keep just that from
happening, no?
In lumber, the return generally has always
been ‘on volume’. Trying to get the ‘costs’ down relative to it. Sure we try to sneak the ‘price’
up whenever we’re able to, but using the CPD to subsidise a ‘raise’
in prices to Consumers just wouldn’t work. The greater problem would be ensuring that
the ‘big boys’ didn’t use it to unfairly subsidize predatory
pricing, to try to eliminate the competition through ‘lower’ prices
that couldn’t be matched. There
would have to be an agreed upon minimum profit on ‘turnover’, (not
on ‘capital’), but I don’t think that would be hard to
obtain, police, or enforce. If they want
‘more’ profit, then, they have to find a way to engender a still
higher turnover. Which
should mean ‘better service’, and more innovativeness in ‘reducing
costs’.
RE: [socialcredit]
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