Once in a while we get a question that is a little out of
our “core competency,” i.e., economic
and social justice. It’s not that we don’t
know something (or even everything) about the subject of the question, it’s just
that it’s not something with which we usually deal — like going to the grocery
store to buy laundry soap. Sure, they
carry a full line of it . . . but what, exactly, does laundry soap have to do
with groceries (besides cleaning your clothes when you spill soup all over
them, that is)?
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| Wage slaves and land speculation. |
That’s not going to stop us from answering, though —
especially when it makes a great segue for another “Why We Need Capital
Homesteading” posting. So, what was the
question? One of the Usual Experts has
pointed out the obvious, that we’re probably headed into yet another real
estate bubble . . . which ties in with the current stock market bubble, and the
global reserve currency bubble, and the consumer debt bubble, and the
government debt bubble, and. . . .
You get the idea.
Anyway, here’s the question:
“In the face of all this is there anything we as individuals
can do to take protective measures and batten down the hatches for the storm?”
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| Protective measures . . . L'Amour style. |
The flip answer is, Head for the hills. Big help, that. A better (but still flip) answer is, Head for
the hills really fast, tote your food, weapons, and water with you, and watch
your back trail. So we’ve been reading
too many Louis L’Amour novels.
Seriously, we’re doing what we can to get to Pope
Francis. Despite the various misrepresentations
in the media — not all by non-Catholics (talk
about being misunderstood!) — the head of the Catholic Church is probably
the only world leader with any credibility right now, whether with Christians,
non-Christians, and miscellaneous, and who might give the Just Third Way a fair
hearing. He’s not returning our phone
calls, though. . . .
The only thing we could think of off the bat is to get rid of all consumer debt, including (or especially) a home mortgage, and don’t take on any more if you can possibly help it, especially home equity type stuff. What happened to a lot of people during the last housing bubble was that they saw the increased (speculative) value of their homes go up, leveraged it to buy stuff, then got caught with their pants down when prices plunged. The best individual advice, then, is do not, under any circumstances, leverage paper gains even if you can afford it, because you are still going to need a place to live if something goes wrong.
The only thing we could think of off the bat is to get rid of all consumer debt, including (or especially) a home mortgage, and don’t take on any more if you can possibly help it, especially home equity type stuff. What happened to a lot of people during the last housing bubble was that they saw the increased (speculative) value of their homes go up, leveraged it to buy stuff, then got caught with their pants down when prices plunged. The best individual advice, then, is do not, under any circumstances, leverage paper gains even if you can afford it, because you are still going to need a place to live if something goes wrong.
Fortunately, however, someone else rang in on the
discussion:
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| Urban Homesteading. And vicious poultry. |
“I think we need to be working as much as we can to form an
alternative economy. Especially barter and within small groups, local friends,
parishes. And urban homesteading as much as possible.”
In response, the original questioner quoted a long section
out of Father William Ferree’s pamphlet, Introduction
to Social Justice (1948). This
was all to the good . . . except that the questioner realized she had given the
response in terms of social justice, not individual actions, as she herself had
requested. As she said,
“Lol, I just realized that I just asked for individual
solutions being that social justice solutions aren’t being pursued on a large
scale. I’m having a fuzzy-brained day, sorry!
“We have tried to do some suburban homesteading but live in a neighborhood that doesn’t allow fences and has a serious rabbit problem. The only thing the rabbits haven’t eaten is my tomatoes. Ugh, it’s quite frustrating. Of course if the market crashes and we lose our home then even my tomatoes won’t matter. . .”
“We have tried to do some suburban homesteading but live in a neighborhood that doesn’t allow fences and has a serious rabbit problem. The only thing the rabbits haven’t eaten is my tomatoes. Ugh, it’s quite frustrating. Of course if the market crashes and we lose our home then even my tomatoes won’t matter. . .”
Having a black thumb, we hadn’t even thought about the home
garden option. We can make a plant die
in agony just by thinking about
trying to grow it.
Anyway, speaking individually — and the whole point of
social justice is to make individual virtue possible — the other contributor
had the right idea. As Adam Smith
pointed out more than 200 years ago, “Consumption is the sole end and purpose
of all production.”
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| Jean-Baptiste Say |
All
economic activity within a rational system (e.g.,
the Just Third Way, free plug) is directed to being able to produce enough by
your labor and capital to meet your own needs, or to exchange for what others
produce to meet your own needs. As
Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out in his “Law of Markets,” it is impossible to
consume what has not been produced, so that (all things being equal) you must
produce in order to consume.
“Money” is simply the means by which I exchange what I produce, for what you produce. Money is anything that can be accepted in settlement of a debt: “all things transferred in commerce.”
“Money” is simply the means by which I exchange what I produce, for what you produce. Money is anything that can be accepted in settlement of a debt: “all things transferred in commerce.”
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| Flowers to the Fed? Financial Freedom? "Say" what? |
Money is therefore either the thing itself, or a contractual
claim on the thing. ALL money in that sense
is “barter money.” It must either
consist of, or represent the present value of an existing or future marketable
good or service.
Modern confusion about money results from the fact that governments realized they could expand their regulatory role over money to actual money creation. They realized that they could manipulate the currency (“current money”) by issuing claims on the goods and services owned by others, backing the money with government debt instead of private sector assets.
What we propose, therefore, is to restore the monetary system to its proper form, function, and intent in conformity with the ORIGINAL Federal Reserve Act that operated only as intended from 1914 to 1916 before the politicians hijacked it to finance World War I.
Before we can do that, however, it is a good idea to have some way of being productive and producing a marketable good or service at the micro level for your own consumption, or to exchange with other micro-producers “off the grid.” Don’t give up your day job, though.
Modern confusion about money results from the fact that governments realized they could expand their regulatory role over money to actual money creation. They realized that they could manipulate the currency (“current money”) by issuing claims on the goods and services owned by others, backing the money with government debt instead of private sector assets.
What we propose, therefore, is to restore the monetary system to its proper form, function, and intent in conformity with the ORIGINAL Federal Reserve Act that operated only as intended from 1914 to 1916 before the politicians hijacked it to finance World War I.
Before we can do that, however, it is a good idea to have some way of being productive and producing a marketable good or service at the micro level for your own consumption, or to exchange with other micro-producers “off the grid.” Don’t give up your day job, though.
Despite all that, we think there’s still a reasonable chance
we can get to the right people and start turning things around. We think that with an intensive program of
expanded capital ownership, the U.S. economy would turn around in 18 to 24
months, and full employment would be reached in 3 to 5 years.
In the meantime, jack or trap the bunnies. They taste kinda like chicken. . . .
In the meantime, jack or trap the bunnies. They taste kinda like chicken. . . .
#30#
