(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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