Back in 1984
Father William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Dr. Norman Kurland, and a number of others
came together in a cafeteria at the American University in Washington, DC, and
organized the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ). From the first — possibly because of the
cafeteria connection — CESJ events have almost always included food and
drink. There has even been talk of
putting together a collection of recipes one day.
Be of good cheer.
This is not a recipe posting. Frankly, we’re not sure how to categorize it,
except possibly as a riff on binary economics dragging in food . . . something
of which we are particularly fond, finding it hard to survive without some.
So, how are we
dragging in comestibles? What started us
thinking was a FaceBook posting showing a meat grinder with the usual, “If you
recognize this, like and share.”
Well, we
recognized it, but we didn’t like and share.
Instead, we looked over some of the comments, most of which were along
the lines of, “Where can I get one?” and people telling them to look at garage
sales and E-Bay.
Amateurs. We got all the equipment we needed to make
sausage from “The Sausage
Maker” in Buffalo, New York, so we gave them the link, and advised them to
get Rytek
Kutas’s book on sausage making, even if we think it’s a little pricey (but
what books aren’t, these days?). He
wasn’t a particularly good writer, and the recipes sometimes need tweaking — he
mixed weight and volume measurements sometimes for spices, which is
confusing. He tells you what you need to
know, however, and that’s the main thing.
We also added some of our own “secrets,” such as making your own casing
for lunch meats from unbleached muslin (old farmer’s trick), and getting
regular powdered milk and pulverizing it in a blender instead of buying the
special finely powdered milk as a binder.
Now, we have no
idea if the Sausage Maker, Inc., is worker-owned. We don’t know if they have Justice-Based
Management. They should, of course, and
could avoid all corporate income taxes by becoming a 100% worker-owned S-Corp
ESOP along the lines outlined by Equity
Expansion International, Inc. We
haven’t even ordered from them for a while.
Our goal was just to give information about a place where, if you were
really into doing things yourself, saving money, and getting a higher quality
product than is generally available commercially except at a prohibitively high
cost, you might want to check them out.
We’ve always been perfectly satisfied.
And now for the
main point of this posting.
With the
ascendancy of Keynesian economics, there appeared an artificial dichotomy in
“the dismal science” (which doesn’t have to be dismal at all) between “micro”
and “macro” economics. This resulted
from the Keynesian basis on the Currency Principle, which is that (most simply
put) the amount of money in the economy determines the velocity of money, the
price level, and the number of transactions.
 |
| Only the State can legitimately create money? WRONG! |
Keynes believed
that only the government can legitimately create money. This is a logical conclusion for a
collectivist trapped in the slavery of past savings.
Unfortunately,
Keynes also believed that the proper backing for the money supply is government
debt. This meant that the split between
“microeconomics” (domestic or household economy) and “macroeconomics” (national
economy) — implicit from the very beginning in the Currency Principle — became
part and parcel of the science of economics.
All of a sudden
there was justification for the government going directly contrary to common
sense. Of course it is essential that individuals and private sector
organizations such as businesses save.
That is essential to finance new capital formation. There won’t be any new capital if people
can’t save!
That’s the micro level, however, the level of the
individual, family, or single business enterprise.
And the macro level?
Well, the money
has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it, or there won’t be anything for people
to save! And since only the government
legitimately creates money, and only government debt can back the money. . . .
You see where
this goes. The belief that the micro
economy differs fundamentally from the macro economy can be traced to — and is
justified by — the idea (among others) that it is good for individuals to save,
but bad for governments. The utterly
insane corollary also gains political and economic acceptance: that it is bad
for individuals to be in debt, but good for governments.
We’ll continue
with that thought Monday.
#30#
