Brief replies inserted [reply 08-01-03] below: ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 04:25:17 +0100 (BST) From: Bernard Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Re: What If?--Paine, George and Douglas.
"What interference? You receive a ticket that admits you to a specific performance at a specific theater. Has your life been interfered with or has it been enhanced through the receipt of the ticket? Presently, the seats at the theater that are empty are wasted. The social credits allow them to be filled." With all due respect Bill, this is rather specious logic. It is expected in both my society and yours (and I suspect most others) that if you give me a gift, you can't then dictate when and how I can use it. ---------- [reply 08-01-03] Please answer the question: Has your life been interfered with or has it been enhanced through the receipt of the ticket? -- Let me propose another "what if". Your vouchers are distributed as a citizens income, and are circulating around the home economy. Then some bright spark, or sparks, create a market exchanging your vouchers for one or many other currencies. You now have leakage, what are you going to do? Have the Feds arrest him? ---------- [reply 08-01-03] Tickets do not "circulate" but are redeemed, so the question of "leakage" will not arise. It is indeed illegal to trade in food stamps. People who receive food stamps might want to trade them for cash so they can purchase cigarettes. Social credits are issued against the productive capacity of the nation and are redeemable against that productive capacity. -- The stuff from Thomas Paine was fascinating. I've often thought there must be a missing link between SocCred and Georgism and sort of knew it went back to Paine, but I didn't know how. But was Paine talking about SocCred? Surely SocCred says money is simply issued by government fiat equal to deficient demand, unbacked by anything. ---------- [reply 08-01-03] Not so. The social credits are backed by latent productive capacity. -- Paine's proposals, like the classical Liberal economists, sought to back money issue with a tangible commodity. I can't see why the value of the land stock at any given time would necessarily equal the amount of the deficiency of demand in that period. ---------- [reply 08-01-03] You misinterpret what Paine said. Please read it again. The "tangible commodity" represented by the bonds only *fractionally* backs the money. So there is mere *correlation* between wealth and money. Note the differences between Paine's proposal and current practice. The money is backed by bonds issued by private individuals in fulfillment of tax obligations, rather than by government to fund expenditure. The money is disbursed as dividends directly to individuals rather than expenditure for government services. The disbursement of the money creates the fund from which the bonds may be redeemed. -- Incidentally, an interesting variation on Paine's proposals is an idea I have mentioned on both this site, and the Truefreetrade site, that is money backed by renewable energy. ---------- [reply 08-01-03] The "renewable energy" concept floated about is as harebrained as it comes. Not only labor but energy is being displaced from the productive process with increasing efficiency. Basing money on energy suffers the same inevitable fate as basing it on labor. Bill ____________________________________________________________ Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail! http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005 --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
