Cheers, Ken Hanly
Ken Hanly wrote:
> I am not at all sure that the Council of Canadians has any direct relation to what is
> being discussed. An online source for monetary reform of this sort is:
> http://www.monetary-reform.on.ca/main.shtml
> Guernsey is a historical example of the successful application of the principle
> of issuing a wealth-based public mint system rather than a private debt-driven
> privatate mint system. (Monetary Reform Magazie 1996). It should be in the archives
> on the website
> CHeers, Ken Hanly
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> >
> > > Ok - what would the problem be for the Bank of Canada to buy up the loans from
> > > private institutions? Then the "public" debt would be owed to "public" bank?
> > > This is done for RRSP's (say, when you use your RRSP to purchase a house) - why
> > > can't a (theoretically democratic) national bank do the same thing? If the gov
> > > needs money, it's just stupid to go to a private institution.
> > >
> > > somewhat perplexed,
> > > ken
> >
> > I think one of the economists on the list better take the time to
> > answer this in some detail. Through years of reading Pound,
> > Pound's critics, and some of Pound's sources I know to mly
> > own satisfaction (a) how impossible this is (b) how politically
> > dangerous it is and (c) how appealing it can be to someone
> > outraged by conditions but not familiar enough with the
> > right history and with counter-arguments.
> >
> > >From the *Cantos*
> >
> > A factory
> > has also anothe aspect, which we call the financial aspect
> > It gives people the power to buy (wages, dividends
> > which are power to buy) but it is also the cause of prices
> > or values, financial, I mean financial values
> > It pays workers, and pays *for* material.
> > What it pays in wages and dividends
> > stays fluid, as power to buy, and this power is less,
> > per forza, damn blast your intellex, is less
> > than the total payments made by the factory
> > (as wages, dividends AND payments for raw material
> > bank charges, etcetera)
> > and all, that is the whole, that is the total
> > of these is added into the total of prices
> > caused by that factory, any damn factory
> > and there is and must be therefore a clog
> > and the power to purchase can never
> > (under the present system) catch up with
> > prices at large,
> >
> > and the light became so bright and so blindin'
> > in this layer of paradise
> > that the mind of man was bewildered.
> > (Canto XXXVIII)
> >
> > And, in the Pound tradition, one unclogs it with money created by
> > the state, which is what Ken is proposing. But the state of course
> > must be prepared to make that money be honored. Hence, from
> > a later Canto:
> >
> > Story told by the mezzo-yit:
> > That they were to have a consortium
> > and one of the potbellies says:
> > will come in for 12 million"
> > And another: three millyum for my cut;
> > And another: we will take eight;
> > And the Boss [Mussolini] said: but what will you
> > DO with that money?"
> > "But! but! signore, you do not ask a man
> > what he will *do* with his money.
> > That is a personal matter.
> > And the Boss said: but what will you do?
> > You won't really need all that money
> > because you are all for the *confine*."
> > (Canto XLI)
> >
> > >From the state loaning money to the state (i.e., issuing
> > fiat money) almost always flows some form of authoritarian
> > utopia.
> >
> > Carrol