Paradighmatically Enlightening Thread on Social Credit and Its Lack of Advancement

Me: Why not make the discount at retail sale 50%? That way both individual potential purchasing power and business revenue will be doubled. And because retail sale is the terminal ending point of the entire legitimate economic/productive process, the terminal summing point for all costs and so prices for every consumer item and finally the terminal expression point for all forms of inflation a 50% reduction in retail price actually painlessly and beneficially integrates price deflation into profit making systems.

Such a policy thus becomes more than a theory it is elevated to the level of paradigm change.

Merely filling the gap statistically goes against Douglas’s observation that balancing the books of the economy is a prescription for recession or depression. I remember Wally saying that Douglas and some of the early social crediters debated what percentage of deficit the gap actually was and some of them thought it could be as high as 90%.

JS: Hi Steve 😊,

The size of the discount needs to be accurately measured, not just determined “Willy nilly”.

Now, of course, economic sabotage plays a big part of it, and youre correct, Douglas said it could be as high as 75%, but I don’t think it’s prudent to do that initially. Many of the goods and services we are producing need to disappear first.

I did a quick calculation for Canada based tool on government stats, and it was around 15%. This obviously could be increased over time, but I think it’s prudent to be cautious initially.

Me: There’s no need to quibble over numbers. You could just as easily make the Dividend $1500/mo with a 33% discount/rebate that would enable everyone to purchase $1995/mo, or make the dividend $1600/mo with a 25% dividend and then everyone can purchase $2000/mo. All of the “knock on” benefits of reduced transfer taxation for the individual and enterprise could thus still be implemented.

Social crediters are far too concerned with what the “authorities” and elites will think and say….and (puzzlingly) do not seem to recognize how politically powerful its message would be if communicated directly to the individual. Politics is simultaneously the strongest and weakest aspect of the financial elite’s hypnotic control of the populace. The boldness of paradigm change is the route to real change, caution only leads to palliative reform. If Christ had said grace was scarce or sparse instead of abundant would he have attracted as large a following? If Luther had said you still had to fulfill 50% of the sacraments with the church because you could only have 50% of a direct relationship with god would The Reformation have even occurred?

JS: Hi Steve,

We shouldn’t even be talking about numbers unless we have the stats to back them up. The Alberta Social Credit Party was a populist movement. Douglas was quick to distance himself from it. And as it turns out his decision was wise. The Social Credit Party embarrassed itself repeatedly, and we are still feeling the sting of that embarrassment to this day. People here still call it the “funny money” party.

Me: Well, good luck getting social credit going without showing large bi-partisan constituencies like workers and businessmen exactly how social credit is going to benefit them.

AW: Hi Steve,

I have to acknowledge that what you say does make a lot of sense at least on paper but I am not sure how it would go in the real world. I am sure there could be a few variables out there that could put pressure on these numbers. I believe the safest and wisest way to approach this would be on more on a scientific basis.

We could do this slowly in a number of increments until we get the magic number that works. Waiting for the result of each increment will give us the opportunity to observe its effect on the economy first so we can act accordingly. If for example we get our figures wrong in these small increments it can be fixed easily without to much damage to our credibility. By going slowly the population will see that the foundation we are working on is strong and that it is credible. The continued rising growth of affordability without excess inflation will do wonders, I’m sure.

There is also the issue of wasteful production Jim has mentioned about. I’m sure we could regulate what products are able to utilise this discount rate on. So in other words blatant wasteful production could be penalised by reduced discount or none at all. I am sure that over a period of a few years the desired changes for quality long life products will be a reality and with it more leisure time and a more sustained environment.

Me: Thanks for replying Andrew. I can understand caution, but the fact remains social credit has gone absolutely no where since WW II started and distracted everyone, Keynes became the fall back position of finance to it and Douglas and social credit got virtually erased from history.

Social credit needs at least a shocking re-introduction and preferably a re-working from the best mere economic theory of the last 90 years into the paradighm change its basic policies could accomplish. I prefer the $1000/mo dividend and 50% discount/rebate policy for that reason alone, but again I’m not one to quibble over numbers. You could also have a $1600/mo. dividend a 25% discount rebate at retail sale for most everyday consumer items and a 50% discount/rebate on big ticket items like houses and cars. The point is to vastly decrease personal/private indebtedness and completely eliminate price and asset inflation which breaks up finance’s paradigm of Debt Only for the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of money/credit.

I know this will bring howls from orthodox social crediters, but IMO private banking will never ever be anything but an unethical and disruptive force and so must be replaced by a publicly administered national banking system and a central bank aligned with the philosophical concept of grace which social credit is based on. It’s simply applying Occam’s Razor to the financial system. Private and public finance are potentially corruptible, but one entity stripped of its profit motive and strictly regulated and aligned with grace as in monetary gifting would be a whole lot easier to handle than a bunch of rogue trillionaires. That and it could also really supercharge the effects of a monthly dividend and a retail discount/rebate policy. How? By extending the retail discount/rebate policy to the point of note signing. In other words a $300k house discounted 50% at point of retail sale by the monetary authority to $150k and then a $150k note at 0% is disbursed to the home building corporation to make them whole on their margins and overheads…and then the public national bank which does not need to make a profit discounts the note 50% to $75k. On a 10 year note thats a $625/mo. payment. 10 years and you’re an actual owner of your home instead of a renter of the Banks for 30 years. Just how attractive might that be to every voter except the bankers???

AW: Thanks Steve,

You are speaking my language. Yes, Social Credit has almost become an extinct tiger that has so much potential. Yet, no one knows this more than the private banking system themselves. They really feel threatened by Social Credit because it has all the tools needed to eventually dismantle them. They have managed to silence us and keep us in check all these years. This needs to change.

As you say just using the National Dividend and The Retail Discount alone it is possible to remove debt, which I believe Douglas intended to do anyway but at a slower rate.

I am in total agreement with you that the private banking system needs to be taken out of the equation and replaced with Social Credit banks or a National Public Bank owned by the people via a central bank aligned with the workings of Social Credit. (We used to have one in Australia)

I believe Social Credit is already workable right now, it just never had the ability show its potential that’s all, but there is nothing wrong in trying to improve it if possible. The action of setting up a network of Social Credit banks in the community could be one of them. The action of removing the private banks right to create money as debt could be another.

But first of all we need to rewrite the description of Social Credit so that it can be easily understood. I believe this should be the first priority as we are losing so many potential people through lack of understanding. Then we need to rethink how we can promote it with social media and other venues. When the people understand how Social Credit Works it will be impossible to remove it from them.

JS: Hi Andrew and Steve,

I want to add my thoughts to your conversation.

Certainly, we need to try a different approach from what we have done in the recent past. That hasn’t worked. I don’t think that writing more books on the subject, or giving speeches to the converted is getting us anywhere. I’m a firm believer that for as much as we talk about new technology, we are the least prone to use it effectively. Nobody reads books anymore, and why should they? I don’t read anymore (or at least I read very little). Most of the information I get is from YouTube. We are not using this medium nearly as much as we should be. We use it for recorded speeches, or talks that nobody listens to. We need to be giving short, animated presentations on the subject. And in such a manner, as you suggest, that is simple enough for most people to understand. I truly believe that is the way we need to market ourselves. And then spread those videos far and wide in hopes that one or a few go “viral”.

In terms of suggesting numbers for a dividend or a price rebate, I believe that exercise is fool hardy unless you have statistics to back it up. Any suggestion of numbers for the dividend and price rebate will be torn to shreds by anyone who’s competent unless they can be effectively demonstrated. I’m of the mindset that we avoid numbers all together, and if we must use them, do so cautiously. It’s very easy to attack a theory if the claims can be demonstrated to be ridiculous. Don’t forget, it’s up to us to prove our theory, not for others to disprove it.

Nationalization of banking really has very little to do with Social Credit. Again, I think this is another point that others will attack. The nationalization of all banking is one of the planks in the Communist Manifesto. Suggestions of nationalization of all banks will bring attacks by those on the right that already may view our ideas as that “socialist credit” platform. There is no necessity to nationalize banking, and doing so only increases the monopoly of credit that they already enjoy. As Douglas wrote, we need to change banking policy, not administration. Policy can be changed by laws. There’s no need for the government to get involved in the banking industry, and this would just be another point of criticism for our adversaries.

I would also suggest that promoting Social Credit as an idea that encompasses much more than mere monetary reform is essential. As Douglas wrote, if Social Credit is merely promoted as a means for monetary reform, then it will follow the monetary reform curve of success (people will be interested when times are tough, and not the least interested when the economy is doing well). I like the fact that Steve has taken more of this approach, even if I’m not in entire agreement with his philosophy, or world view. A big hurdle that Social Credit has to overcome from its critics on the right is this philosophy of salvation through works. It’s a puritanical mindset that has really infected the North American mind.

Me: The truth is no matter what numbers one puts out or doesn’t put out at all the orthodox and consciously opposed to monetary gifting are going to try to slam it. That’s precisely why you need to make short pungent videos and use obviously self interested numbers to grasp the populace’s attention and keep it. Even advise people to ignore the contrarily self interested protestations of the economic and financial elites. Does everyone need to have a full intellectual understanding of social credit? Of course not. And when they say social credit is socialism just point out that re-distributive taxation is the essence of socialist economic policy and that a sufficient dividend and discount/rebate would enable us to get rid of the great deal of such for both businesses and individuals, and retort that “Freeing both enterprise and the individual from socialist re-distributive taxation….that’s a funny kind of socialism/communism….wouldn’t you say?” Boldness, the willingness and ability to look at and strategically utilize illogic as a means of exiting the hypnotic effects of orthodoxy and old/current paradigm thinking are in facr signatures of imminent and accomplished paradigm change. We need to go for it!

DM: I think we ride the coattails of the UBI push and add the thought that our approach provides the mechanism to pay for it without having to incur public debt and kick that can down the road too.

As for the CP, it is a critical component too because it provides the needed money at exactly the point it is needed. Who can’t get behind the idea that we collect a sales credit instead of paying a sales tax, and that this actually betters – not worsens – our collective weal? If we convince them of the existence of a gap, then this point won’t be resisted either.

The only comment I will make is that perception is reality – even if it is not the truth. We can’t argue the simple fact that again and again, the canards keep getting thrown at SC. If a frontal assault doesn’t work, go guerilla. That is why I say ride the coattails of Public Banking. It is like Warburg told his cronies at Jekyll Island, “Don’t worry, we’ll fix the rest of it later.” It took the bastards half a century to unwind Glass-Seigel but they were patient. Walk, crawl, run. That’s what I say.

Me: I would suggest that Public Banking and Social Credit integrate their efforts, but that we keep in mind that Social Credit is the deeper, more pragmatic program and point of view. Not for any egotistical reason, but simply because Public Banking is only dealing with the major structural problem while Socail Credit or an innovated and even more synergistically powerful version thereof deals with both the more underlying and encompassing aspect of the problem, namely the the current monopolistic paradigm of Debt/Burden/Additional Costs Only. Structural reform is good. Paradigm change is a rare, utterly significant and permanently progressive historical event.

DM: And there is another factor. People today are radically different from those half a century ago. We are all much more stressed and therefore intolerant. We also no longer trust politicians or our institutions. The mindset today is much more selfish. We need to emphasize “what’s in it for me?” because that is what people generally think. We’re already on the cusp of what Plato told us was the weakness of democracy; that eventually it devolves to us all voting ourselves some free money. After TARP and bankster bailouts, how could it be otherwise? I want my bailout too! That’s what people think so USE IT!

Me: Wisdom!

JT: Steve,

Just where are you suggesting this “boldness” in the manner you’ve proposed take place? The USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Where? Who’s going to go first? I personally can’t see the citizens of any of the latter three realms responding favorably to being that ‘bold’. And that’s based on observing historical precedent of the ‘on-the-ground’ experience with Social Credit in each of those latter three countries.

As Jim has mentioned, the good people of Alberta once bought in to the leader of a well-organised SC group preaching a similar “boldness”, back in an era where it seemed much more appropriate than it might today. His sermon sounded real good back then ~ $ 25 a month dividend, at a time when a good wage for many would be around $ 3 a day, and many made far less than that. If they still had any income at all. And a restriction on prices, too. Many had nothing to lose ~ they’d already lost it, or were on the verge. But the leader of that group, one William Aberhart, found on taking office that he not only couldn’t deliver, but he really didn’t have a clue how to deliver either. And he had the one real expert ‘on tap’ ~ Douglas himself. Whose advice he couldn’t understand, nor see how he could reconcile what he’d promised with it.

Since that time there have been numerous other calls for “boldness” in Canada. I still have a somewhat dated mail-out from the “White Berets” , a Quebec based Catholic Social Credit advocacy group~ one of many I’ve seen that used to go out to every household in Canada. It called on the then Canadian government, headed at the time by Jean Chretien, to immediately initiate a National Dividend payment of $ 800 a month to every Canadian.

Prior to that, the old Social Credit Party of Canada, which actually once had a considerable presence in the Canadian Federal Parliament, often used to make similar “bold” proposals, albeit of a lower figure, but relevant proportionally to the incomes of the times. It all came to naught. Undoubtedly to an ever shrinking minority, what was proposed “sounded good”. To everyone else it sounded, well, simply goofy.

People just couldn’t see how you could pay everyone a dividend without taking what you’d be paying from someone else. It just sounds too good to be true ~ and you can tell them all the stories about Jesus and his ‘loaves and fishes’ you want, and ‘grace’ and all that, and even if they go around proudly ‘wearing’ their Christianity, when push comes to shove they’re still not going to believe you.

If you don’t believe me, then ask yourself how many ever see the irony in how any government that supposedly has to borrow money from banks to function can turn around and bail out those same banks when they get in trouble? How many of the general public could explain that, or even understand it?

Now I’m not completely discounting the idea of “boldness”. For I do think something ‘bold’ is going to be necessary to ever get the foot of Social Credit back in the public’s door. And that something, in my opinion, could be the Compensated Price Discount. Getting something started like that alone is going to take considerable “boldness”. But it has a chance. And no real competition. And I think it’s going to be far more marketable alone than trying to peddle the whole works all at once initially. Because it addresses the primary problem that those politically active on both the ‘left’ and ‘right’ are increasingly complaining about. AFFORDABILITY.

If we go that other route, pushing the same old kick we’ve been on about for years, and it, by some miracle, ever does catch the attention of a large body of the public again , I believe we’re going to find we’ll quickly run into a great many obstacles we’ve so far ignored.

Ones that will prove collectively almost impossible to overcome while trying to hold the fleeting attention of our erstwhile supporters. If you go back and read Douglas’s “Draft Plan for Scotland”, you’ll notice some of them, I’m sure. To wit, the ‘land issue’, for one. Try to sell that notion to people who have convinced themselves the secret to financial success is to buy (a house) low and sell it high. Or anything else, for that matter. That’s not something you can accomplish instantly.

And then there are other problems. Perhaps not so much in the USA, because you have a large domestic market that can already absorb a lot of your own production. But in the three Dominions mentioned above? They do NOT.

The vast majority of their production is destined for export, and the physical ‘plant’ in each of them has been scaled up for that purpose. In a overwhelming number of instances what exists now simply couldn’t be operated practically on a smaller scale. How are you even going to sell the notion that it could to the owners and operators of that plant? That may not seem important to you, but even if we had a government with a knowledgeable, beneficent, absolute dictator at its head, that’s going to be an enormous challenge. Your ‘paradigm shift’ won’t be well received by those currently controlling finance internationally. Nor if it can be caused to fail by them.

Me: Joe,

The citizen’s of Canada, Australia and New Zealand as a whole would be unmistakably better off with the kind of dividend and discount/rebate policy I’ve talked about. There can be no argument about that. That in and of itself would increase their domestic consumption which would be good for their producers, and if large and populace nations like the USA re-industrialized in order to make their economy more robust and cut the wasteful costs of globalized production as I’m sure they would that would undoubtedly enable the producers in the AUS and NZ areas to group together and create a mutually acceptable trading block. The concept is subsidiarity and it not only works it’s a lot more sane than everyone trying to become an export platform.

A new paradigm has to be thoroughly visualized by its leaders and intelligently communicated to the general populace, and the nay sayers simply need to be ignored…..particularly by its leaders. The battle may be a pitched one, but the vision must be held forth…until the obvious dominating self interests of the elite re-inforcing it….is recognized by the many.

If we don’t do that, then I commend you to your separate counsels of despair.

JS: Actually, Steve, you don’t know if they’d be better off with the type of discount and rebate you’ve discussed because you have nothing to support it.

If the size of the discount and dividend is too high, you could end up with massive shortages and inflation. If that happened, people would not be better off, and Social Credit would end up in the dust bins of history.

I like a lot of what you write, but I completely disagree with arbitrary assumptions about the size of the discount or dividend when they seem outrageously high.

Me: Not correct. You’ve apparently forgotten one thing I got from the social credit group here when I first came acrossed it 8 years ago. And that is that retail sale is the terminal ending point of the entire economic/productive process. So if you implement the 50% discount/rebate policy at that point it will absolutely invert inflation into deflation. Put that together with the fact that competition IS in effect between and within business models throughout that entire process and so “garden variety” inflation will not and competitively cannot excede a relatively low single digit number, and also understand that hyper-inflations do not and CANNOT occur without certain prior disastrous circumstances like a war which destroys most of the means of production and a central bank that is compliant in leveraging up speculators who short the currency which kicks off the actual hyper-inflation…so a 50% discount AT THE END of the entire process at retail sale….WILL ELIMINATE INFLATION and WILL MATHEMATICALLY INTEGRATE BENEFICIAL PRICE DEFLATION INTO PROFIT MAKING SYSTEMS. Of course you’ll need sin taxation and the threat of expulsion from the discount/rebate program to discourage the greedy, anti-social and unappreciative businessmen who will try to commit creeping inflation or extreme price deflation on the part of monopolistic enterprise, and perhaps tax encouragements for businesses not to inflate their prices except for genuine increased costs….no system is perfect not even one that has experienced a new paradigm, but the reality that the new paradigm creates UNMISTAKABLY IN THE TEMPORAL UNIVERSE…cannot be denied BECAUSE EVERYONE EXPERIENCES IT….like the ability to purchase twice or thrice as much with the same level of income as they did the day before the new paradigm occurred.

JS: Steve,

I said if the dividend and price rebate are can create massive shortages and inflation.

The rebate is only a ratio. If all prices increase, they will still increase with a price rebate mechanism. The rebate mechanism doesn’t fix prices,

Further, if the rebate is too high, then you could also end up with massive shortages where there is too much demand for companies to keep up at that price.

Nowhere does Douglas, or any economist, claim that the supply of goods and services can be met at any price.

What Social Crediters are seeking is equilibrium between aggregate incomes and aggregate prices. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the size of the dividend and price rebate you suggest will bring about that equilibrium.

Me: “What Social Crediters are seeking is equilibrium between aggregate incomes and aggregate prices. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the size of the dividend and price rebate you suggest will bring about that equilibrium. ”

Yes, they are. And that’s part of the problem. Douglas’s A + B theorem makes him the first DISEQUILIBRIUM theorists. I’ve been trying to communicate that fact to the best present day economists for years. Douglas was against the idea of balancing/equilibrating the books because the system was inherently cost inflationary. Merely filling the gap is just an extension of balancing the books when what is required to have a truly freeing and free flowing system is to create waht I call “the higher disequilibrium”.

“The rebate is only a ratio. If all prices increase, they will still increase with a price rebate mechanism. The rebate mechanism doesn’t fix prices,”

No they won’t. It’s NOT JUST a ratio. Again you forget that retail sale is the terminal ending, summing and expression point for costs, prices and any and all forms of inflation. How can it be anything but so….as it is the terminal ending point for all items and services….where production becomes consumption? And I already explained how any inflation that might occur before and throughout the entire process can only be a very small single digit number so that if there was 3% inflation you’d still have 47% price deflation, and technically you could just make the discount 53% and voila!, everyone’s purchasing power is immediately doubled!

“Further, if the rebate is too high, then you could also end up with massive shortages where there is too much demand for companies to keep up at that price.”

No there wouldn’t. In the first place doubling purchasing power does not necessarily equate with a doubling of consumption. (and part of my program would try to further acculturate the always relevant factor of thrift and other economic virtues in the interest of being free from the enslavement of debt) In the second place you’ve already recognized that we’re over producing in order to attempt to fill the gap so we’ve got plenty enough productive capability to meet any upping of consumption.

“The higher disequilibrium” is a much more stable flow than the A + B or mere book balancing the gap economies.

JS: Douglas was not against balancing the books. He said they can’t balance under the current accountancy. His solution, which involves a dividend and price rebate created with debt free credits, would balance the books, thus creating equilibrium.

“And I already explained how any inflation that might occur before and throughout the entire process can only be a very small single digit number so that if there was 3% inflation you’d still have 47% price deflation, and technically you could just make the discount 53% and voila!, everyone’s purchasing power is immediately doubled! “

That’s right! And a 50% discount might very well end up being a 15% discount if the discount creates 35% inflation.

The fact of the matter us you don’t know, and you have no statistics to back your claim of a 50% discount. That’s the issue! And issuing the discount in that fashion is reckless, in my opinion.

“In the first place doubling purchasing power does not necessarily equate with a doubling of consumption.”

I never said it did! But doubling purchasing power either doubles consumption, ceterus paribus, or it also causes inflation. Those are the two options.

Me: “But doubling purchasing power either doubles consumption, ceterus paribus, or it also causes inflation. Those are the two options.”

ceterus paribus is just another errent orthodoxy. Money is not the actual or the most basic cause of inflation. Its most basic and relevant cause is commercial agents existing in an economy of scarcity of individual income and hence business revenue seeing more money coming into the system and thus deciding to inflate in order to garner more revenue. If you provide a better, more rational, beneficial and more profit making alternative to that reality like the 50% discount/rebate the smart businessmen will embrace it.

JS: Steve,

Ceterus paribus is just Latin for “all things being equal “. It doesn’t have anything to do with economics itself. In fact, scientists do experiments in labs so that they can keep other variables, ceterus paribus.

Me: It’s still irrelevant to the fact that a sufficiently high percentage discount/rebate monetary policy at the point of sale would accomplish a paradigm change in economic and the money system. Full stop.

And doubling POTENTIAL purchasing power does NOT mean that everyone will consume twice as much mashed potatoes, bed sheets, dog food and lipstick. They will undoubtedly save a lot more and probably pay down debt with the 50% savings they get at whatever they purchase at retail sale.

JS: Steve,

But if implemented incorrectly, that “paradigm change” may not be for the better. Full stop.

JT: Steve,As Jim has said, we have no way of ‘knowing’ that the citizens of those three countries would be better off with the kind of dividend and discount policy you’ve suggested. We can imagine they would be, but we really don’t know. And the amount you’ve suggested, at 50%, is only for the FIRST month. What are you going to use to base the amounts that should be paid in the second and succeeding months? You have to have something equivalent to a national Capital Account to base these payouts on, and the accounting used has to be not only consistent, but originally based on realistic figures.

A trade magazine I receive once had a chart in it that graphed the Canadian economy, sector by sector. Taking all the sectors as a whole it stated that in ‘normal’ times our economy operated at around 76% of its actual productive capacity, on average. In a ‘boom’ period this moved up to around 85%. This would indicate, roughly, that a conservative estimate of the size of the SC consumer income ameliorations might be 15%.

This in itself is a substantial augmentation to average incomes. If it were even that high. Because into the calculation would have to be allowances for projected effects on the type of production we’re making. It isn’t just as simple as picking a nice sounding figure out of thin air, in the hopes it’ll excite enough people to get on the bandwagon and start beating the drums and tooting the horns. Admittedly, they’d make a loud sound, but it’s far more likely to just be noise, not music. And very quickly everyone is covering their ears, rather than clapping for an encore.

JS: Steve,

The whole purpose of the dividend and price rebate is to correct for an accounting flaw related to accrual accounting and capital. Due to the flaw, costs, and hence prices, are always greater than incomes distributed in the same period of time.

The goal of the dividend and price rebate is to rectify this flaw in such a way that consumers can purchase what they produce without going further and further into aggregate debt. Further, Douglas proposed that the real cost of production is consumption over an equivalent period of time. Because of the accounting flaw identified above, Douglas recognized that the real cost of production is less than the financial cost by the ratio of consumption/production. This is a SCIENTIFIC proposition. The rebate is not just something that the size of which is determined “willy-nilly”. Certainly, the accuracy of statistics gathered is always going to be less than perfect, and consequently, the size of the rebate is always going to be a guesstimate based upon the best available statistics, but it still needs to be determined by the best available statistics, not just based upon someone’s wishes. The best available statistics, as inaccurate as they probably are right now, suggest the price rebate is probably around 15% in Canada. If you can show me more accurate statistics to demonstrate you case, I’m all ears. Otherwise, you’re just making up numbers, and in my opinion, that really does nothing to help our case.

Me: @JS: If a small, gameable percentage is implemented it will simply be a tweaked form of Keynesian stimulus…not a paradigm change…like an innovated and extended form of social credit could be.

@JT: If a 50% discount/rebate is implemented and even though it is mathematically more beneficial for all agents and much less gameable than a 15% one….we can maybe adjust it a little…or put a few anti-social heads on a pike so that their businesses go bankrupt.

JS: Yes, it probably would amount to a tweaked form of a Keynesian stimulus in its early stages. Radical paradigm changes take TIME to implement. Over time, maybe we can get to the point of a 50% rebate as you’re suggesting. But in order to get there, the economic system is going to have to make some radical structural changes that are likely to take decades to secure. It’s not going to happen overnight. It may very well happen in the long run. In fact, I believe it will happen in the long run, and perhaps even more than you’re suggesting, but you have to crawl before you can run. You want to run without allowing the economy and societynto first learn to crawl. That’s a great futurist vision, but getting there is all about the details, and the details cannot be overlooked.

Me: When the moons of jupiter were observed with a telescope the Copernican cosmological paradigm change was confirmed and instantaneously its efficacy and undeniable reality became apparent. The recognition of the powerful significances of the point of retail sale and direct and reciprocal policies crafted around it (specifically that retail sale being the terminal expression point of all forms of inflation, a high percentage discount/rebate policy at that point means you can integrate price deflation beneficially into profit making systems and thus you can inject virtually as much money into the system as is necessary to produce an abundant system for all) …..is the invention of the telescope for economics and money systems.

The present directness, instantaneousness and general ability to communicate to billions makes rapid change that much more possible and likely. We need to “Go for the gusto.”

JS: Hi Steve,

Nobody on this list is denying Douglas’s scientific discoveries. But it must be remembered they are scientific. To use your analogy, nobody on this list is denying the existence of Jupiter, but we are denying that there’s any credible proof that because Jupiter exists, that means there’s a whole civilization of living beings on Jupiter. You’ve yet to prove that. So let’s start with what is scientifically demonstrable and move from there.

You’re not from Canada, or more specifically Alberta, so you’re not aware of the damage the Social Credit Party did to actual Social Credit because of some of their outlandish claims. People here have heard of Social Credit, and they refer to it as that “funny money” party. We don’t need a repeat of that history.

Me: “Nobody on this list is denying Douglas’s scientific discoveries.”

Ah, but do they know the wisdom of it. Science by the way, is a subset of wisdom. Is a sparse and cautious dividend and discount aligned with grace? Or is abundance and benevolently sovereign ability to act?

Sorry Jim your analogies are stretched very thin and not actually applicable to what I’m saying.

JS: My analogy explains your position aptly. You have no scientific evidence to support your claim for a 50% price rebate anymore than the scientific discovery of Jupiter supports the claim that there’s life and civilizations on Jupiter.

Further, it’s not wise to make claims that are unsupported in order to garner short term support. This has been shown time and again throughout history, including the Social Credit movement itself. That is real wisdom! Talking about wisdom is not the same as actually having it, and exercising it. Yes, wisdom is very important, and Joe, I and others are saying it’s not wise to make bold claims thatntheres supportive evidence for.

Me: Jim,

A 50% reduction/rebate of price for every item or service at the TERMINAL END of the entire economic process at retail sale, for instance every $1.00 item now costs the consumer only $.50. IS empirical, mathematical and scientific proof that you can beneficially integrate price deflation into profit making systems. And I already explained that you cannot have more than low single digit systemic inflation due to inevitable competition and fear of loss of market share or hyper-inflation without prior disastrous circumstances.

JS: Steve, there’s nothing scientific about your statement. It’s pure conjecture. And you can have more than low, single digit inflation, or shortages. History is full of examples of it.

Me: Not correct. The fact of the ending/tipping point of the entire economic process at retail sale makes it a repeatable scientific fact.

You can only have high percentage systemic inflation if there is a LEGITIMATE increase in SYSTEMICALLY RELEVANT COSTS like the increase in petroleum costs in the 70’s. And such is rare, remidiable and still would not eliminate the effect of a 50% discount at retail sale.

JS: You can also have high, persistent inflation if you have too much money chasing too few goods.

Me: The 50% discount/rebate is tied directly and only to the point of an actual sale and that sale results in price deflation for the consumer. The dictum that inflation will automatically result if more money comes into the system is a secondary or tertiary factor in inflation and is negated by the better, more rational and beneficial alternative created by the discount/rebate. Of course if businesses arbitrarily raise their prices without actual additional costs and despite all of the benefits of, and additionally created by that policy…then sin taxation and ultimately the threat of expulsion from the privilege of participating in the discount/rebate….ought to awaken them rather rapidly to the gracious and yet sovereign power of such a policy and system.

JT: Steve,The fact that the “small, gameable percentage” , whatever amount it turns out to be, is DEBT FREE IS a major paradigm change. It’s a start away from the present ongoing overall build up of unrepayable debt.

Me: Joe,

Yes it is….and if you offer the consumer a 3-4% or even a 10% discount to their prices they’ll yawn, the powers that be will call it “funny money” again and social credit will remain in the dust bin of history for another couple decades or a century. You have to grab the individual’s attention, hold onto it and TELL the individual to IGNORE the “authorities” (because they should, because you can paint them as the self interested and destructive elite the majority sense they actually are, and because you know we’re right).

DM: Ah but there CAN be an argument about that! You confuse truth with belief. What you say may be true and those of us who understand the mechanics of SC know that a huge discount could be introduced that would work as you say. BUT… If nobody believes you, then to them, the truth is a lie. Their belief is in error but because it is their truth, it becomes an impenetrable fortress. You could more easily change that mind with a modest change that would have a minimal impact so that one could test its effects. It is like demanding that a person tear down their house and rebuild it because of poor insulation and windows, when you could demonstrate the benefit by advocating new windows instead. The house would improve modestly and your demonstration would cause them to start to see that perhaps razing the house would be a good idea after all. They could salvage the windows and use them in the new house next year!

That is how you need to tone down your rhetoric and that is how this SC forum needs to see the benefits of getting behind Public Banking. They strengthen our hand!

Me: And you can advocate a 50% discount/rebate and really regenerate the ideas and policies of Douglas in the minds of the general populace. Or you can increase the dividend and lower the discount. I’m not the one hung up on cautious numbers….that TPTB are going to yell and scream about any way. I’ve already suggested making the dividend $1600/mo. and the discount 25% for everyday consumer items and services and 50% for big ticket items like homes and high MPG autos. And my extending the end of the economic/productive process to note signing with an additional 50% discount for the above items enabled by a non-profit national public banking system is completely outside of the box and beneficial. Lets get SOMETHING going instead of re-gurgitating dogmas and going no where.

JS: Steve,

What we need to be promoting is the truth, whether that truth is Social Credit, and whether that truth is the particular size of a rebate is of secondary importance. The truth will always prevail in the end.

What you are promoting, in terms of the size of the rebate is not the truth, in my opinion. It’s a sales pitch with the sole intent of lying to people in order to get them to buy our idea. I do not believe that’s ethical, and will not work in the long run, in my opinion.

Me: Not correct. It’s actually the full and consistent philosophy and rate of flow policy….that Douglas recommended.

JS: Dean,

You, like the public banking crowd, are confusing policy with administration. Guess who’s going to be running the banks if the government owns them? The exact same people, for the most part, becausebtgey are the trained specialists that understand the mechanics of banking. And anyone with a little experience with government ownership of the production of services knows that it’s generally done very inefficiently. I, personally, don’t want the government running my bank. And it’s completely unnecessary. We just have to license them, and force them to follow our policies. If they don’t, then they lose their license.

Me: Not if it’s guided and based on monetary grace as in gifting instead of private for profit banking.

The problem is macro-economics is very erudite…but old paradigm thinking. As I have said here before macro-economics being a very recent discipline born into the very thoroughly integrated paradigm of Debt Only is actually destined to fixate on interminably obscuring and exterior-ly enforced unresolvable problems.

The answer is to reverse the parasitic and de-stabilizing financialization of the economy by making Monetary Gifting the new and primary paradigm and then craft policies at strategic points like the point where production becomes consumption so as to accomplish the re-retailization of the economy.

JT: Hi Dean,Can you actually verify this part of what you wrote? :- “Public central banks are indeed no guarantee that they will be run in the best interests of the public. The Bank of Canada is one excellent example. It used to, but no longer does.”

Now perhaps I’m wrong in my interpretation of this, and you meant something different from the way I’m reading it. But I rather think that you might have swallowed some of Paul Hellyer’s propaganda about how he thought the Bank of Canada used to act, but no longer does.

Namely that it financed the Government of Canada, (and even the Provinces, so some of his supporters aver), long term, essentially ‘interest free’. That this propaganda has been picked up and spread far and wide by those promoting ‘public banks’ does not make it anymore true than some of the other examples given by them that have been explored and debunked previously on Social Credit Lists. Ones like the Guernsey States Notes, for instance, and Lincoln’s Greenbacks.

So far as I’m aware, from what I’ve read on the subject, this supposed action of the Bank of Canada was never actually the case. I could well be wrong, but I haven’t yet seen anything that leads me to believe I am. And this is why I’m asking what I do in my first sentence above.

I’m not saying that, under its charter, the B of C couldn’t do that. It could. Only that, to my knowledge, it didn’t .

And, though this is just an un-expert assumption on my part, for probably the same reason the Commonwealth Bank in Australia, which seems to have done that once, to a limited degree, stopped doing it.

Namely, that it rendered the ‘value’ of the currency of any country doing such a thing at an unacceptable risk of not being able to be accurately determined internationally. And therefore of far less use, or in some cases actually even useless, in conducting international trade.

This comes back to part of my objection to what Steve has proposed with his 50% discount.

We, in this country, nor Australia, nor New Zealand, nor, albeit perhaps to a lesser degree, the USA, are presently internally physically ‘self-sufficient’. That we all COULD BE, to a far greater extent than we are now, is unquestionably true.

Me: Joe,

Your point that public banks didn’t REALLY finance those countries…because they still relied largely on re-distributive taxation in order to do so….is quite correct and points out the importance of recognizing that not just more thrifty public banking is important, but THE PARADIGM of FINANCE of DEBT/BURDEN/ADDITIONAL COST ONLY….and that combined with the ending, summing, terminal expression and tipping/paradigm changing point of the abundant discount/rebate policy at retail sale that integrates price deflation into profit making economic systems….IS the final realization of the problem solved.

So far as self sufficiency is concerned guaranteeing monetary and economic security with the abundant dividend and discount/rebate policies would enable any country to rapidly re-industrialize in the most efficient and productive way….because they won’t have to worry about unemployment or inflation….ever again.

JT: Steve,Again, it takes TIME. And in the meantime? Lets suppose you make the discount 50%, are successful in selling the notion to the public, and get it enacted through a Citizen Initiated Referendum, or through a Parliament or Congress. You’ve just arbitrarily picked an attractive figure, and it’s attracted. It’s not based on the realities of WHAT is being produced, or WHERE, or consumed, or maybe anything other than the assumption that it’ll be good for everyone because it sounds good.

What’s likely to happen the minute it comes into effect? We don’t know, we can only imagine, but in all likelihood at that rate there’ll be a rush to buy up consumer goods that were previously unaffordable. Store shelves will quickly clean out. And it’ll take TIME to replenish them. And will the discount on the replenishment be the same? Lets say you say it is, because you’re not tying it to anything other than it sounds good.

Now you run into an interesting situation. Lets say the public that didn’t camp out overnight in front of the store doors so they could be first in, like they do now on a Black Friday, still wants, or in some cases even needs, goods that are no longer there.

Lets also say, as would likely be the case, that some of those who bought the 50% discounted goods, didn’t really want or need those goods, but by getting the drop on the rest of the herd they now have something they can sell to them for, lets say, substantially more than they paid for them.

They’re still less than they would have been sans any discount, but far less than the 50% off they got. In that case the sale at final retail ISN’T the end of the transaction at all, is it? You have a ‘black market’, and how do you deal with that? Rationing? How popular is that going to be? Take a page from how the Communists dealt with it, in places like Viet Nam, et al? What you’re really going to engender is chaos. Stores won’t know whether the public’s initial desires will be repeated, or whether their future customers might have made purchases from the black marketeers. If they overstock, they might get stuck with stock they can’t sell. They err on the side of caution, and then there’s shortages. And who really knows what effect this has on the discount, because you’ve nothing to tie it to, except some figure that sounded good.

Me: I understand what you’re saying Joe, but IMO these are a lot of unlikely problems and unnecessary fears. The technology of abundance is readily available.

JS: Steve,

I HIGHLY doubt these are unlikelynproblems and unnecessary fears. And you’ve supplied no evidence, beyond your opinion to contradict those fears and concerns.

Me: I don’t think so. As I said before a doubling of individual purchasing power doesn’t automatically equate with a doubling of economic throughput, and people aren’t going to eat 6 times a day either.

JT: Steve, it DOES if you make the discount initially too high. People suspect it won’t last, that it can’t last, and they’re all too likely to do just as I’ve said, and Jim has confirmed. They won’t eat “six times a day”, but they may well buy twice as much food as they’ve been buying because they want to “get while the getting’s good.” This would likely be the case with non-perishable foodstuffs, and many other articles in common demand. That’s just human nature.

Now you combine that with an equally generous dividend, paid to all, remember, and just what’s that going to do to the production that creates this abundance? We’d like to think that it would automatically increase. But that’s the trouble with too large a paradigm shift coming on all at once ~ it might not increase. It might fall. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know what lies beneath the surface, just waiting to rip the bottom out of the good ship “Social Credit” as it sails blindly forward.

Me: Not if it’s explained that it may vary slightly, but it will always be substancial. And you could always have regulations aligned with the concept of grace (which is the ONLY philosophical concept that is ALWAYS beneficial) that the prudent businessman would be happy to abide by in order to avoid either shortages or malinvestment and waste.

And the run up to implementing the new paradigm politically would give every smart businessman the time to consider their best path forward. The awakening to a new paradigm may be “in the twinkling of an eye, but it’s not called the temporal/time universe for nothing.

Social Credit/Wisdomics/Gracenomics/ Gracientialism

Paradighmatically Enlightening Thread on Social Credit and Its Lack of Advancement

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