Actually, the way to fix money which is virtually monopolized by Finance and its paradigm of Debt Only is to implement three policies and one structural change:

1) A 10% discount/rebate policy at the point of sale of each business model’s product or service to the next business model throughout the entire economic/productive process that is rebated back to them by a separate monetary authority. If any business arbitrarily inflates their prices for any reason other than legitimate ADDITIONAL costs incurred, say 3%, then that percentage is multiplied x 2 and subtracted from their reimbursed 10% rebate. This will encourage the micro-economic virtues of frugality and competition and discourage the economic vice of price inflation.

2) A 50% discount rebate at the point of final retail sale which is the terminal expression point for all cost and price inflation for every product or service.

3) A $1000/mo universal dividend distributed to everyone 18 years of age and older.

Structural change: Private money creation is abolished and a publicly administered US Bank is created with full arms length separation from the three branches of government and from the monetary authority mandated to distribute the dividend and rebate monies. Private finance will survive as a business model that advises savers and borrowers on investment of only already created and saved money.

Benefits:

Policy one as stated prevents garden variety intra-systemic inflation which is never of high percentage because price competition still lives between commercial agents and where it doesn’t taxation, forfeiture of discount/rebate privileges and monopoly break up could be followed through on.

Policy two implements beneficial price deflation into profit making systems by its discount to the terminal expression point for all price inflation while also keeping businesses whole on their overheads and profit margins via the rebating back to them of their discounts to consumers. It immediately doubles everyone’s potential purchasing power including any unemployed whose dividend becomes potentially $24,000/yr. Thus all transfer taxes for welfare and unemployment insurance paid for by both individuals and businesses immediately become redundant and able to be eliminated. Taxes for social security could also be rather rapidly phased out as well. Their bureaucracies could also be eliminated. Finally, as inflation will no longer be a systemic problem and direct monetary funding of all government expenses would  be the reality, virtually all personal and corporate income taxes would be able to be eliminated as well.

Paradigm changes benefit all parties because they integrate the truthful, most beneficial and most workable aspects of the agendas of apparently opposing sides, like economic democracy and thrift as in the above policies for instance.

Policy three immediately ends poverty in America as every adult will have $24,000/yr of potential purchasing power and every two adult household will have $48,000/yr of same, and that’s without them earning anything from employment so if each had jobs totaling $20,000/yr that would make their total income potentially $48,000 + $80,000 or $128,000/yr.

The structural change terminally ends the naive idiocy of believing that a private monopoly on the paradigm and product of the tool that is necessary for commercial and individual survival in a MONETARY economy….is understandable in any way. As policy one and two are unmistakably gracious monetary gifts there is no way that even economic libertarians can misconstrue them as tyrannical.

There are many other “knock on” social, psychological, political and economic benefits from these policies, and as is historically verifiable, all legitimate factors in the area of human endeavor that a new paradigm occurs in….adapt to its obviously deep, broad, transformational and beneficial changes….not the other way around.

Me:  Virtually everything problematic about the money system and the economy could be rectified if we’d simply think ECONOMICALLY about the money, pricing and accounting systems, and recognize the stupendous economic significance of the point of retail sale as the summing and ending point for costs, prices, the expression point of inflation and the ending point in the entire economic process for every item or service.

Thus if you implement a discount/rebate policy at the point of retail sale at the end of the economic process and the point of retail sale from one business model to the next throughout the economy you can transform the tendency of modern technologically advanced economic systems from erosively inflationary to beneficially deflationary for all agents, and as a kicker, break up the glaringly contradictory monopoly paradigm of Debt Only that private finance dominates everyone and everything with as well.

Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting is the same conceptually oppositional inversion/transformation as the one from Nomadic Hunting and Gathering to Homesteading Agriculture and the inversion of position and primacy from earth centric Ptolemaic cosmology to Helio-centrism.

It’s the apotheosis of economics and economic theory.

PB:  We have a lot of pieces we do know. We know total private debt is a controlling variable (given unemployment correlation with same) even though neoclassical school teaches the opposite. We know fiscal deficits don’t matter in the short run having demonstrably run up 20 $Trillion recently. Much more world wide.
I believe we will eventually learn what variables are important but the irony will be this will not let us escape our Faustian choices. We will learn e.g. that stable monetary purchasing power is important but there are sometimes more important goals, like lowering total debt and thus unemployment. I’d be happy if total debt could at least join the list of variables to consider. Right now it’s excluded by loanable fund

Me:  The answer to the dominating paradigm of Debt Only, the coalescence of the financialization of the economy and their resultant enforced monetary austerity is Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting strategically targeted at the various points of retail sale throughout the economy. The answer to parasitic financialization is the re-retailization of the economy as per above. Private finance/money creation is not a legitimate business model being post retail sale, and the only way to insure that public finance/money creation is benevolent is to mandate that it consider and empower the individual FIRST and consequently enterprise and the system right along with it. No more “hobby horse” tweaking, no more mere reforms and perturbations, no more continuous pain and stress all around, no more orthodox neo-liberal “Change you can believe in” or populist disguised conservative “Make America great again”

Paradigm changes are real and profound. Let’s have real and profound change.

DT:  Craig as he expresses himself here I have to disagree with: he’s back with micro-economics missing out the people and institutions comprising the economy, and the fallacy of composition in summing up. His later “the only way to insure that public finance/money creation is benevolent is to mandate that it consider and empower the individual FIRST and consequently enterprise and the system right along with it” comes back to my credit card concept.

Me:  The problem is aggregate Debt and its continual build up via the paradigm of Debt Only. As macro-economics is about aggregates and their significances that’s a macro-economic observation. The same with the insight that the moment to moment flow/reality of the macro-economy is the destabilizing scarcity ratio of TOTAL individual incomes to TOTAL costs and so prices. The new/newly re-discovered significances of the point of retail sale and the digital nature of the money, pricing and accounting systems are all perceived by looking directly at the day to day operations of the economy alright, but as retail sale occurs throughout the entire the economy and at its end, and the policies derived from such insights have general individual, commercial and systemic affects they are macro-economic as well.

The accounting system and its cost accounting convention that all costs must go into price are universally (and correctly) applied by all honest accountants and enterprises thus there is no fallacy of composition in what I am saying.

A credit card only enables you to borrow, i.e. become further indebted. That does not break up the monopoly paradigm of Debt Only. Only Monetary Gifting does that. A debit card that enables a universal dividend to be be gifted to the individual would be fine.

RL:  Rwer is too orthodox in that it frames its discussions mainly in nomethetic terms, to criticize them usually, but not to set them aside. Spender’s point is that in the theory of the firm, the marketplace is not the operative point, but his point is not taken up in discussions. Mine in the recent rwer is that we don’t have to go through nomothetic science to get to the real world, to skip the science and go directly to the firm-centric real world. Leave the scientists out as a reference point and then you’ll have a paradigmatic change.

Me:  @ Robert Locke

Yes, I’ve noticed that RWER Blog is too orthodox as well. They’re undoubtedly well intentioned, I’m not disputing that, but they lack the the characteristics necessary for true paradigmatic thinking which are not only iconoclasm, but also integration of opposing truths and finally the ability to step COMPLETELY outside of the current paradigm and visualize the new one.

I’m surprised no one here has done a study of paradigm changes and their signatures some of which I have posted about here recently. You would think that would be a great topic for discussion here because paradigm changes are so deep, broad, permanent, historically progressive and agreed upon changes.

I readily admit I stand on the shoulders of giants, but I have always enjoyed integrating and innovating ideas and patterns, and my adult intellectual studies just happen to be wisdom traditions, human consciousness itself and their pragmatic expression, and that is exactly what paradigm changes are, the integration of new ideas and patterns, new realizations regarding them and their expression in the temporal universe.

Along with the policies of a universal dividend, the high percentage retail discount/rebate and the 10% “Pass On/Minus Reduction of Price Increase” discount/rebate from one business model’s “retail” products to the next business model on the route to retail sale a new government Department of Innovation, Competition and Systemic Stability should be created as a watchdog for non-economically justified price increases that publicly posts such by those corporations that do so, so that individuals can see who is greedily trying to game the system even though it has enabled them to save  tremendously and profit much more than ever before.

Also, this department would fund research on how to produce more with less resources and distribute such research to those corporations that have played by the rules and have pledged to continue to do so in recognition of its benefits to all and in order to keep such system stable.

Me:  A few R. Buckminster Fuller quotes:

“We are powerfully imprisoned by the terms in which we have been conducted to think.”

“If I ran a school, I’d give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I’d give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.”

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

“If I ran a school, I’d give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I’d give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.”

Those that have eyes to see and ears to hear, let them see and hear.

That last quote was a mistake, but upon reflection I decided to leave it in….because typed and hopefully understood in a new unit of time/the present moment…it was new.

The moment to moment macroeconomic reality of profit making systems is that the flow of total costs and so total prices exceeds the the flow of total individual incomes actually available to liquidate those costs/prices. Combine that with the monopoly on the form of money creation and distribution, i.e. Debt Only, which even at 0% interest incurs an additional cost….and one cognites on the fact that a new form of money distribution is required to resolve the problem, namely Monetary Gifting directly to the individual and reciprocally to the individual and then back to the merchant at the ending point of the entire legitimate economic process known as retail sale.

Posted To RWER Blog 04/10/2018

MMT, as Steve Keen correctly states, talks about government debt which is a smallish percentage of private corporate and personal debt. The paradigm of Debt Only of course is about all debt and its inevitable negative effects (the continual build up of debt costs and so prices to the point of deflationary collapse) as is its replacement Monetary Gifting which resolves that problem with a new economic philosophy, the comprehension of insightful stable datums within the chaos-complexity of modern economies that virtually all current economists are missing for a variety of reasons and enables the crafting of new policies whose temporal universe effects are the inversion and beneficial transformation of the problematic ratio of the greater flow of total debt costs/prices to rate of flow of total individual incomes simultaneously created.

MMT has the mechanics of money creation correct, but it is mostly just an ideology looking for justification….the same as Keynesianism was and its various derivatives still are.

It’s about the paradigm-pattern…not the details fallacious or true.

KZ:  Craig, your suggestions sound interesting. One question, how do you suggest we prevent the monopoly financialists from subverting the changes you propose? Words and even actions can be undermined and directed in wholly new paths. Financialists, who benefit greatly from the exiting economic arrangements are not only smart and creative, but also good at destroying opposition. They’ve proven that repeatedly.

A point related more closely to the subject is “what is mathematically really?” Mathematics is like money, war, or religion – not physical, not mental, but social. Money, religion, and mathematics can only be dealt with in social-cultural-historic terms. This isn’t controversial – it’s a fact of life. Mathematics is another particular, special social-historical phenomenon. Its most salient special feature is the uniquely high consensus it attains. People invent mathematics to do things, to be useful. Is there a mathematics invented that’s beneficial or useful for economics? If there is, I’ve not seen it.

Me:  Probably the best way to keep finance from subverting the beneficial effects of the policies of the new paradigm of Monetary Gifting would be for all the economic pedants and pundits (including myself) to start a mass social movement that alerted individuals and businessmen to how such policies are in their self interests. Trying to convince other economists and economic and monetary authorities who have their hands on the “controls” of the economy is a hopelessly inadequate and quite frankly dumb strategy. Ignore/rebut any cry from the bought or confused that such policies will cause inflation by simply playing out the actual temporal universe effects of the policies both at the terminal end of the economic process at retail sale and also at the point of retail product sale from one business model to the next. Stay focused on those effects and communicating them to large targeted constituencies like the above and also students who are being enslaved by the current system/paradigm.

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo

KZ:  Craig, Hugo I think is correct. But it’s not individual self interests whose time has come, but rather public good. Once we can figure out what public good is.

Me:  One of the aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace is the utter integration of the truths in opposite perspectives to the point of thirdness and greater oneness which means that self interest and the public good CAN BE so integrated.

KZ:  Craig, could you explain how this integration is possible with “grace.” I face this issue routinely with my clients. I always advise choosing the alternatives that provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number, where we can specify such clearly.

Me:  You implement policies that reflect the various aspects of the concept of grace and so integrally effect those aspects in the temporal universe, for instance monetary grace as in gifting. A universal dividend is a direct gift of money to the individual. A 50% retail discount/rebate is both a direct and reciprocal gift of reduced price to the individual, a reciprocal gift of the merchant’s discounts back to him/her, a gift of the potential doubling of sales available to enterprise and a gift to every agent of a system which has become so prosperous and stable that it is in a state of virtual grace as in free flowingness, and finally these policies integrate price deflation beneficially into profit making systems at the terminal ending point of the entire process where production becomes consumption and both sides of that divide are satisfied, agreed and have benefited.

Define the concepts, implement policies that effect its aspects, further regulate in ways that align with the concept and if wise amend with structural changes that dynamically maintain those effects.

Wisdom is the very process of the integration of truths in opposing perspectives (and the simultaneous deletion of their separate untruths, unworkabilities and inapplicabilities), and the pinnacle concept of all of the world’s major wisdom traditions is the natural philosophical concept of grace as in an integral unification of a duality (opposites) to the integrative/continually integrating point and process of thirdness greater oneness.

By the way, these policies actually benefit finance the most of all. How? By giving them the greatest value and highest reward of all, namely grace as in absolution from their 5000 year old a priori dominatingly unethical paradigm of Debt Only.

KZ:  Craig, maybe I’m just dense, but I still don’t understand how we bring along in the directions you suggest people who believe your proposals are either dead wrong or just not effective.

Me:  In the first place the authorities who think this way and/or are resistant are few which we would be smart to largely ignore. Secondly, monetary gifting is so obviously beneficial to both the individual and commercial agents that simply dramatizing/acting out their various policy effects  so that people in general and businessmen in particular can see and feel it….is enough to win the day. Not everybody has to completely understand the accounting principles, the old or the new paradigm etc. etc. etc. they basically need to see and understand that it is good for them and everyone else. Look at half @ssed palliatives and unnecessarily re-distributive policies like social security. Regressives have been trying to get rid of them for almost a hundred years and can’t. How much more difficult will it be to end directly distributed universal dividends and reciprocal monetary gifting with a 50% discount to where consumer price inflation is terminally summed and expressed so that everyone’s purchasing power is immediately doubled, the possibility that enterprise can double their sales and the system flows like a gymnast across the floor?  Even the most hardened libertarian or conservative pundit will see the efficacy of such policies and stop refusing to accept their dividend and discounts, if only after their wives see everyone else beneficially receiving them and then hit them over the head with a frigging rolling pin.

Me: The reason Keynesianism morphed into the neo-classical synthesis is because it was a mere reform. It was also the fall back position of Finance as Social Credit had become a world wide movement in the time between the world wars and its policies threatened their paradigm. Douglas was a much better observer and more insightful than Keynes, but I’m not sure even he, let alone his followers, ever truly comprehended the paradigm changing capabilities of Social Credit’s policies as the term was not known at the time, plus Social Crediters were also mostly afflicted with the false orthodoxy of general equilibrium and so did not realize the inversion/transformation of a problematic duality or ratio signature of paradigm change.

You never hear economists talking about Social Credit I suspect because it became so buried by the distraction of the war, relief at its ending, the rise of Keynesianism and finance unfairly tarring it as anti-semitic even though its entire philosophy was based on the natural philosophical concept of grace-graciousness.

JB:  Craig,as I was raised in America, Social Credit spoke of the horrid ideas of Socialism. The cultural divide given by the Atlantic Ocean made most Americans believe in opportunity which was to be given to all who worked & kept their eyes open. That’s why my ancestors came from Germany, Sweden, France & Scotland in the 1880’s & 1890’s.

Me:  My ancestors came from Germany, England and Ireland in the 1880’s as well in order to find opportunity and to avoid conscription in Bismarck’s wars.

Socialism has almost as horrid and fallacious a history as capitalism and its current horrid manifestation finance capitalism. I will not dispute that some mixed systems of democratic socialism are somewhat less horrid than finance capitalism, but they are still laden with fallacies, unworkabilities and palliative “solutions” for monetary economic systems. For instance, given that MMT has shown that sovereign fiat money systems do not actually need taxes….then why do we need re-distributive taxation? The truth is we don’t, what we need is direct funding by the government and economic and monetary policies that will both prevent inflation and ideally can integrate deflation into profit making systems…..like the ones I’ve been enumerating here lately. These policies would eliminate what all heterodox economists have identified as a problem namely systemic austerity for all agents, and they align with fragmentary suggested policies like UBI and “a modern debt jubilee”. It’s just that the heterodox are not aware of the significances, opportunities and benefits of tying monetary policy directly to the point of retail sale…..yet.

Integrate truths and keep on integrating them, and it will become increasingly difficult to “put a foot wrong”.

…but immediately go right back to manipulating abstractions and either affirming their own orthodoxies or debunking some one else’s.

No, philosophize! In fact philosophize and also utilize Wisdom by applying the very integrative process that is Wisdom itself….and then contemplate the pinnacle concept of Wisdom which is grace as in the dynamic flow of everything in the cosmos. Thus you’ll have a focused, clarified and unitary concept to guide you in perceiving and applying the new monetary and economic paradigm of Gifting.

Paradigm changes have always been accompanied by/enlightened by the invention of a new tool, the discovery of a new insight that has been overlooked or forgotten from within the area that the new paradigm applies to and/or from the integration of the scientific method and an aspect or aspects of human consciousness/the discipline of Wisdom. In the case of economics and its new paradigm Monetary Gifting all of these and more of the signatures of paradigm change are present, and because economics and money so pervasively effect every human being and the wisdom concept behind the new paradigm is its pinnacle one, the new paradigm has the potential to positively and generally effect broader areas of human endeavor than simply economics and money systems.