In this brief series we’ve seen that the “MyRA” is a step .
. . but in the wrong direction. Aside
from the fact that the whole idea is to get people to save more at the same
time the government is making it more expensive to live (and then raising costs
by increasing wages without a corresponding increase in labor productiveness),
everything relies on an outdated and, frankly, failed understanding of money,
credit, banking, finance . . . and power.
There are two ways to see that people’s material needs are
met. Either they take care of themselves
through their own efforts, or somebody else takes care of them. The MyRA, at least, pays lip service to the
idea that people should take care of themselves. It’s so trivial as to be a meaningless noise,
but it’s at least a noise.
The problem is that the MyRA is geared toward encouraging
people to set aside something they don’t have: savings out of inadequate
consumption income. We haven’t checked
recently, but the per capita
non-mortgage consumer debt in the U.S. has been in the neighborhood of
$8-10,000 for some time. That’s per capita, not per family.
The MrRA is supposed to help people save up to $15,000 on
“easy” terms. If people are already
$10,000 in debt to make ends meet, subtracting an additional $15,000 from
consumption income for retirement savings would, logically, put them $25,000 in
debt. Exactly how this helps people
prepare for retirement is not exactly clear.
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| Adam Smith |
Of course, the whole problem (and a bunch of others) would
go away if the United States would go with a Capital Homesteading program. There is no need to restrict consumption in
order to save for retirement or finance new capital formation. Both can be done not by decreasing
consumption in the past, but by increasing production in the future.
This makes sense. If,
as Adam Smith insisted, the purpose of production is consumption, then
diverting current income into saving for either retirement or financing new
capital diverts production (supply/income) from its proper purpose. Further, reducing consumption means there is
less demand, and thus less need of new capital, and fewer if any new jobs
created.
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| Dr. Harold G. Moulton |
As Harold Moulton explained quite a few years ago in The Formation of Capital (1935),
consumer demand drives the demand for new capital. The demand for new capital drives the demand
for new jobs. If people stop consuming,
or even if they reduce consumption by what seems like a moderate amount in
order to save, the economy stalls, and can even go into a tailspin.
If every child, woman, and man became an owner of new capital
financed out of future increases in production instead of past reductions in
consumption, no one would have to worry about reducing consumption in order to
save for retirement, nor would those concerned with economic growth have to
worry about the rate of past savings.
Both could be taken care of out of future savings, and by the same
operation.
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| Own or Be Owned |
It’s really very simple: own or be owned. Either people take care of themselves by
means of their own capital and labor, or somebody takes care of them. In the former case, people own. In the latter case, people are owned.
Any questions?
#30#