RL:  Wisdom is attributed to some old people, never to the young or only rarely to people in power, since old people have lived through the follies of man, whose solutions to problems turn out badly. All the solutions are used up, which is why we are flailing about to thresh out something else, with little hope, wise men say, and conservatives argue, to find something better than what has failed.

Me:  “Wisdom is attributed to some old people, never to the young or only rarely to people in power”

Yes, yet the young often have insight due to not having fully ingrained the burden of orthodoxy and the unconsciousness of current paradigms. But it takes the integrative proclivities of wisdom to truly drop the arrogance of ideologies and combine only the truths in opposing perspectives. Such insight without wisdom IMO characterized “the Woodstock generation” when they sang ”and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” of an adult leisure economy. It’s taken an additional 45-50 years of failing to finally consider a thirdness greater oneness and so something actually different from 5000 years of the neurotic hypnosis of private finance and its dominating paradigm of Debt Only. Let us end it with both youthful hope and hard and fast temporal universe policy effects.

RL:  The founding fathers agreed that power corrupts, that is why, they adopted a constitution with checks and balances. But this kind of government is not good at problem solving as we have learned. The average person is screwed by the system, the rich minorities thrive on their abilities to dominate through checks and balances. A solution: strong elites, properly educated to look after the general as well as particular welfare. Our educational system as reformed after WWII fails the American nation in this respect. It seeks solutions through economics, when economics, in its takeover of US higher education, is the problem if the education of a leadership class concerned with the general welfare is a solution.

KZ:  Robert, is this akin to the notion of a benevolent aristocracy supported by many in the 18th century? Including many of the founders of the US. If so, this is not that much different from the notion of professional government bureaucrats proposed by many in the Progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century. John Dewey describes in detail how to select, train, and support such an “elite” of government professionals. In either case the main issue in creating a government of benevolent aristocrats or scientific professionals is counteracting corruption.

JB:  Ken, that’s what I came up with also, but “scientific professionals” are normally seduced by awards & job advancement, the latter meaning both money & enhanced social standing.

KZ:  James, Dewey was described as a “philosopher who combined the stubborn perseverance of a New England farmer with the zeal of a reckless liberal.” He was a progressive and far-sighted thinker with a distinctly American sensibility, espousing the virtues of pragmatism and experience over absolute and metaphysical truths and who advanced a social and political philosophy perhaps more thoroughly democratic than any that has been formulated before — or since. (PS, in an historical sense William James and John Dewey are my mentors.) The two sides of making democracy and government work are for Dewey, liberal passion and pragmatism. Both it seems are out of style today.

JB:  Ken, in my undergraduate course on American philosophy Dewey was the person whom I felt closest to, although most of us lovef theThoreau of Walden Ponda as well.

Robert, so where does a society turn to guidance?

Me:  Ken, James, Robert,
Folklore is the proverbial/common sense aspect of Wisdom. Self awareness and ultimately simply consciousness itself is its direct knowledge aspect. Deweyism’s mixture of moralism and pragmatism is admirable but eventually, as Robert and all of you point out, it is incomplete and corruptible…..unless it is accompanied by the underlying ethical experience of self awareness, and we’re seeing this occur in the present moment in our politics. Trumpists mistake the witty but vile demagoguery, corrupt rakishness and errant orthodoxy of “fourth turnings” of Trump for Wisdom.

Without direct knowledge of the natural existential experience of consciousness which all of the world’s wisdom traditions affirm is love, and its active temporal universe expression grace-graciousness, the vitality of proverbs diminishes….and the many aspects of the concept of grace as applied to economics, to everyone’s detriment, is not perceived.

HS:  I just lost a short piece on this very issue, but I shall endeavour to rewrite it again.
Any potential double crossing is my fault alone.
In the previous post, I asked colleagues to read more, quoting a brief extract from Tolstoy’s wonderful masterpiece called Anna Karenin’s conclusionary remarks. Please look it up for a wonderful analysis of everything refereed to above and much more. It is only a few pages long and sums up all scientific knowledge and its use and misuse. I should be obvious to us all that Tolstoy was not an Economist! And that he is one of many writers whose wisdom we must teach ourselves and our students to surpass.
“Can those hundreds of millions of human beings be deprived of that greatest of blessings without which life has no meaning? Knowledge, sure, unattainable by reason, has been revealed to me, to my heart, and here I am, obstinately trying to express that knowledge in words and by means of reason…”

Me:  Yes, “standing in the light” of the natural experience of self awareness, consciousness-love-grace is the thing all people, and especially scientists and economists, finally need to integrate into their lives…to complete it and FULLY understand all of the data, theoretics and philosophy they have accumulated before it.

An aspect or aspects of grace has always been the operant force behind every paradigm change in human history.

KZ:  Craig, humans and human experience are always and forever incomplete and corruptible. That’s what makes human existence. Achilles replied when asked how the gods viewed humans – the gods envy humans. Because unlike the gods, human life and experience may end at any moment. That uncertainty makes human existence exhilarating and challenging. On the other hand, the gods have no exhilaration or challenge.

Me:  “Craig, humans and human experience are always and forever incomplete and corruptible.”

As is both the static and exterior concept of God.

“That’s what makes human existence.”

Human existence EXISTS within the temporal/time-space universe which by definition and reality is in continual process. Continual action-process is an aspect of grace. In fact the most concise definition of grace is love in action. Life IS grace…un or incompletely realized. Although time flows, life consciously experienced as a continual flow of new moments is pointed at by all of the world’s major wisdom traditions as the ideal and conscious awareness of grace as in the present time newness of nowness of love in action. If one wants to experience grace they simply need to experience every moment thusly….and if we want the economy which is embedded within the temporal universe to flow freely our philosophy and relevant monetary policies should reflect grace as in abundance instead of austerity and scarcity….as are currently ENFORCED by the paradigm of Debt Only/Burden/Additional cost post retail sale.

“Achilles replied when asked how the gods viewed humans – the gods envy humans. Because unlike the gods, human life and experience may end at any moment. That uncertainty makes human existence exhilarating and challenging. On the other hand, the gods have no exhilaration or challenge.”

Again that is the static and exterior from human consciousness concept of God. Realizing that we are each of us an expression and experience of God/the cosmos inverts the situation and makes the challenge increased awareness of both the temporal universe-science and self awareness-consciousness….which is the beginning of an ultimate integration that a civilization dominated by the paradigm of inquiry of Science Only….now almost desperately needs to realize…..and that both the new  economic paradigm of Monetary Gifting and a scientific study of wisdom and its highest concept grace are logically aligned with.

KZ:  Craig, my view is humans create grace as part of the reality they choose. And they use grace to create maps. Sometimes useful. Sometimes not.

Me:  I think that grace is a perception-perspective problem not a reality one. Grace is natural we just have to come sufficiently into the present moment to perceive it.

There ARE levels of consciousness, and the temporal-physical universe perspective generally hypnotizes us into thinking that its space, time and seeming chaos are ultimate reality when they are actually simply the almost utter integrative quantum perspective…with enough space, time and randomness tossed in….to confuse the situation. The Hindu perspective refers to this as Maya-delusion, I would say that the delusion was in thinking of the temporal-physical as the ONLY ultimate reality.

All realities are real, even insane ones to the insane, but ultimate reality is understanding that ultimate reality is the integration of the realities of the temporal-physical universe and consciousness to the the point of the perception and experience of grace:
[ (temporal-physical universe x consciousness) grace ]

or also what I have referred to as The Cosmic Code described as:

a thoroughly integrated duality within an integrative trinity-unity-oneness-consciousness-process.

PB:  Better to focus on the fact that labor’s share of output goes increasingly to the banking and finance sector. Technology and capital equipment plus human capital do not flow elastically across borders. There is great hysteresis meaning such things, once lost, are not as easily regained. Steel plants shipped to China do not return just because of a few tariffs.

Me:  Precisely, and the best way to not only resolve individual monetary scarcity and the hysteresis of plants sent to China is not tariffs but a universal dividend wed to a discount/rebate policy at the point of sale throughout the entire length of the productive/economic cycle. If you don’t have to worry about unemployment or lack of demand you could rapidly re-industrialize the US in as technologically productive and ecologically sensitive way possible. Just one of many “knock on” benefits of the new monetary paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting.

Besides being terminally orthodox about finance and economics Trump being the likely poster boy for Russian money laundering would likely not be interested in a new paradigm.

Anyone here interested enough to ask a few questions about how the above policies would fit into the economy etc. ??? Or are you all still caught up in the inevitability of inflation according to current orthodoxies? Almost no one seems the least bit curious or willing to examine my claims. Hate to say it but it makes one wonder who supports Real World Economic Review Blog.

KZ:  Craig, humans only have their own experience and consciousness. They do not have the experience and consciousness of God; however, humans determine what that is. As Achilles notes, humans have a limited life in every respect. Makes human life exciting but also unknown.

Me:  “humans only have their own experience and consciousness. They do not have the experience and consciousness of God;

They have both. Normal garden variety incomplete partially out of present time consciousness and (gradiently) the much more intensely present self aware Consciousness.

Some wisdom traditions claim the latter as attributable to themselves and some to god as an exterior concept and experience. Either way the genuine experience is ecstatically now and new in each perceived unit of time.

Have you ever studied the world’s major wisdom traditions?

KZ:  Craig, I worked with the Aborigines during the 80s and several religious communities in the US (e.g., Amish) during the 70s. Part of that work was considering their spirituality. But as an anthropologist I never internalized that spirituality. I’m a scientist.

JB:  Ken, ditto for me when working with West African & Upper Amazon tribes.

Craig, yes, but within the study of religions during my senior year in college. However with two parts of my family in psychiatry or tech, I had to move on to see how I would handle the two as a basis for my life.

Me:  You can have both Cartesian coordinate and unitary experience within the cosmic code formulation of a thoroughly integrated duality within an integrative trinity-unity-oneness-consciousness-process.

The sages of history were the scientists of their time….and probably of all time. When the zen masters refer to getting past “the breath on the mirror” they’re talking about dropping any semblance of ego identity in pursuit of the experience of consciousness itself. Now that is a thorough integration of the scientific and wisdom modes of mind-experience.

The paradigm of inquiry, of Science Only, has become a subtle and resistant bias over the last 500 years or so and needs to relent and be integrated with the more inclusive paradigm of Wisdom…. in order to aid perception of the 5000 year old paradigm of Debt/Burden/Additional Cost Post Retail Sale and thereby enlighten and facilitate the new paradigm of grace as in Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting.

Integrate the truths in opposites. Make that your ethic and you’ll be the wisest and best scientist around.

*****************************************

FS:  Very good!… Kudos to Dean Baker.
In that vein, and as a sarcastic aside, I have always wondered if those proponents/defenders of «intelectual property rights» («no matter what»…) have ever considered paying just a small fee to the Incas for the development of potatotes…
More serioulsy, Knowledge (as a «commodity»…) has this peculiar characteristic that, the more you share it, the more it grows… Funny, isn’t it?

Me:  F-S,
Yes, sharing denotes a duality to integrate which is the process of wisdom and continual and thorough integrating of a duality results in a thirdness greater oneness which is the signature of grace. And greater abundance is an aspect of grace as well.

Macro-economics was birthed only about 80 years ago, has only existed within the paradigm of Debt Only and has only had private finance as its overwhelmingly primary business model.

As retail sale is the end of the legitimate economic/productive process and private finance is an additional cost post retail sale it is not a legitimate economic/business model, and so a new macro-economics must arise out of this insight. It will be found that many of the instabilities and so called emergent qualities bedeviling present economics will either end or become much more easily mathematically handled, and the only other additional thing necessary is the change in primacy from Debt Only to Debt and Monetary Gifting.

In fact macro-economics was the delusional body of knowledge crafted as if private finance was an authentic economic/business model when a public banking system wed to the new paradigm of Monetary Gifting could actually extend the point of retail sale costlessly by making all loans in the future at 0% (the government not being a business model and hence not required to make profit) and enabling the discount/rebate policy to be applied to it as well. Then we could truly have “an ownership economy” and the “withering away” of the real problem that has primarily resulted in the fall of civilizations for over 5000 years, the monetary paradigm of Debt Only/Additional Cost Post Retail Sale.

Yes, the long 5000 year old neurotic hypnosis of private finance and its dominating paradigm is ending with both hope and hard and fast temporal universe policy effects….”and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

DT:  According to my dictionary the word ‘axiom’ can refer either to a self-evident truth or a universally accepted principle. Economists seem to be assuming the first of these and forgetting about the importance of the second, as exemplified in the ways of denoting sounds and numbers.

JB:  Dave, this is a major issue, is it not? Self-evident to whom? And universally-accepted by whom? And with a meaning mutually understandable/accepted in each instance by whom?
A standard example is the German word, “gift” = “poison” in English. While a medaeval meaning like “poison” exists, there is a large group of cultures who would say, “receiving a gift implies an obligation to return it, of larger value if possible to signify status or commitment”.

Me:  James,

What is the etymology for the german word gift? It might be enlightening. Cultures that associate gifting with propitiation, which is what is described in the actions and ideas expressed, are undoubtedly authoritarian and so would result in such resentful meaning. They are obviously not the traditional meanings associated with grace-graciousness, nor are they in any way relevant to monetary gifting as a resolving factor in economics.

Ironically, the definition exactly describes borrowing and the the current monetary paradigm of Debt Only/Burden/Additional Cost Post Retail Sale.

It is completely true that the glaring virtual monopoly on credit creation by private finance and its paradigm of Debt Only/Burden/Additional cost post retail sale ARE the problem, however socialist re-distributive taxation is not their best and actual resolution. I will not argue against the fact that certain socialist economies are more humane and re-distribute the scarcity of individual incomes better than more capitalist ones do, but reactions and palliatives are not integrations and to claim that such are better than integrative and actual solutions cannot be objectively or long justified.

Me:  Axiomatizations are utilized to formalize knowledge into data….for people who do not practice contemplation. And that’s why wisdom is more important and superior as a discipline….to science.

And when you wed axiomatization of the fact that the point of sale is a summing of costs and prices and retail sale is the terminal ending of the summing of costs and prices in any economy to contemplating-looking at the temporal universe effects (the end of systemic monetary austerity and individual monetary scarcity) of the policies of a universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate policy at the point of sale throughout the entire process of the economy and at retail sale….is when a paradigm changing individual and systemic realization occurs.

And these simple but not simplistic policies may insult the erudite and well intentioned vanities of economists and economic pundits whose minds still partially reside within the old paradigm, but historically nearly everyone has egg on their faces at the time of paradigm changes…until they see it themselves…..so no shame in that. In fact the only real sin is advocating a palliative when an actual solution is available.

Let us have trade as mutual aid, not as ultimately failed attempt to stabilize domestic economies with an inherent scarcity of total individual incomes in ratio to total costs and so total prices.

Me:  Tariffs are attempts to protect national economies that have been used repeatedly by us and others for well over 100 years. They are terminally orthodox old paradigm thinking that hamstring the economic virtues of thrift and competition. With the new paradigm policies of a universal dividend and a high percentage discount/rebate at the point of sale and final retail sale integrating price deflation into profit making systems the national economy would no longer need such old paradigm measures and could prosper like never before on only domestic demand. Conservative and libertarian economists need to drop the fallacy of general equilibrium and liberals need to stop using euphemisms like disequilibrium to describe the economy when the bald truth is the economy is actually most accurately described as financially raped and smothered chaos aided and abetted by the additional collusion of corporations with global reach. The longer we ride our favorite hobby horse theories and euphemisms without accomplishing the rejuvenating integration of the truths in opposing perspectives that is a new paradigm the more likely we will unconsciously be doing the disintegrative bidding of dunces and dupes like Trump who believe in “Fourth Turnings” which is actually the all too familiar historical inability to consciously create the integrative thirdness greater oneness of paradigm change.

Socialism even of the democratic variety: A flawed theory and not the basis for the new paradigm, but that presently in most instances is a better system to live in if you are a human being than finance capitalism.

JB:  Craig, I guess we agree that capitalism has shown too little regard for the non-winners in the economic game of life. So, logically, what is the flaw in socialism which eliminates it from our consideration? And what then is left the peoples of the world of all religions & cultures?

Me:  James, What’s left to us is the genuine third way which rather than being a mere reaction is an integrated/integrative process AKA paradigm change. And that is the flaw in socialism as well. It is a reaction, a mere reform, it is just as elitist as capitalism….and ultimately just as unworkable so long as we do not deal with the current monetary paradigm. Most of the democratic socialist countries are feeling the pinch the same as the capitalist economies are, and would be even worse if they did not have a commodity or a domineering strategy to aid their economies. Germany being probably the best run DS economy in the world still relies upon being an export platform for its stability.

Finance has become dominating theft. Re-distributive taxation has become soporific and hypnotically manipulative theft. Monetary Gifting insightfully and intelligently implemented is the sword that cuts the Gordian Knot that enables the thirdness greater oneness of the particles of truth in capitalism and socialism.

RL:  Socialism has never been understood by Americans. We were brained washed. While an undergraduate, I read Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, in which he mentioned the “fisheyed stare” that people encountered in communist countries, behind which people hid their belief and feelings from the ever intrusive state. I encountered it in the border agents of the DDR, the first time I drove to Berlin. I expected to find it in my wife and her family whenI came to Poland to marry her in 1991. But I FOUND NO FISHEYED STARE in Poland. I asked Vera about it, she just laughed. You find that in Russia and East Germany, but not in Poland. It seems that there were as many varieties of Communism as there were (are) varieties of capitalism, because of the different cultural heritages of “communist” countries. A lot of people in Poland have good memories of “socialism’ (no unemployment, all children accommodated in summer camps, etc.), although they do not yearn for the good old days. For the average person there is a much more realistic evaluation of what has been won or lost, than among American intellectuals.

Me:  Robert. I completely agree as well, but the tell is they have no desire to go back to it. My wife is from Romania and while she disdains the domineering police state she lived under for over 30 years of her life she recognizes that there were beneficial aspects to it as well. But what if we didn’t have to have all of the palliative monetary trade offs and justified economic vices to have the benefits of socialism?

Finance capitalism and communism are the dominating monetary flip sides of the same paradigmatic coin and socialism is the caught up in ever lasting contention reform that cannot accomplish paradigm change. America is lost and headed for a similar disintegrative downgrade to what the USSR and the Warsaw Pact went through in the 80’s and 90’s unless it perceives the new paradigm and shows the world’s peoples and economies that direct and reciprocal distribution will free them.

JB:  Craig, this concern for finance comes as various firms want to have us use our smart phones instead of credit cards to charge our way through the day. Evidently Alibaba’s version is alarming the Chinese government because so many hundreds of millions are using it for transactions, savings & loans. We looking at a major social issue, aren’t we?

Me:  If we don’t awaken to the new paradigm and its policies and then intelligently plan for an equally enlightened psychological acculturation to leisure with an expansion of purposes other than/in addition to employment….then we’re all in for an ugly and deadly social “fourth turning”.

I don’t know that much about Alibaba’s effects, but unless it changes the inherent scarcity ratio between individual incomes and costs it won’t resolve the problem.

The Chinese and the Orient as a whole are smart, but IMO while being conceptually correct, their collectivist tendencies are an out mental gradient because they reflect an ethic-zeitgeist which is one of only two integrations above a paradigm change. Mental-conceptual integrations, like levels of consciousness, follow specific hierarchies and for good reason because to skip a level leaves important knowledge and insights behind-unperceived.

RL:  Craig, I have been pursuing “financialization” for some time (Locke, R. R. (2000). American business school education and the revolution in interactive information technology, “Reform of Finance Education in U.S. Business Schools (2011), rwer, Management from Hell: How financial investor logic hijacked firm governance (2012), Boostzone Institute, PARIS, “Financialization, income distribution, and the social question (2014, rwer), Locke & Spender, Confronting Managerialism, 2011, etc.) The problem is finding something to replace it. Europe’s subservience to Trump and Trump’s to finanization, takes the West out of the search for a new paradigm.

Me:  Robert,
And that is absolutely to your credit. And I completely agree that Trump likely being the poster boy for financial fraud, money laundering and the current monetary paradigm’s disintegrative effects on the whole of human civilization….is not about to awaken to the new one.

We here however, are aware of specifically what the problem is and all we really need is to realize that new paradigms are always conceptual opposites of the old one and changes of primacy.

Nomadism to homesteading

legalism to grace as in love in action

handwritten to mechanically created literature

absolution only via the sacraments to a direct relationship with god

terra-centrism to helio-centrism

and now Debt/Burden Only to Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting

KZ:  James, Robert, Craig, capitalism is at best an aberration. One or another form of socialism is how Sapiens organizes itself for most of its history on Earth. Capitalism is much too destructive of Sapiens’ society as well as the physical environment to make Sapiens a viable species. Even in the most oppressive monarchical and fascist regimes most of human society was organized around socialism. Even if the equality was flawed by a 1%-2% sitting atop the 98% like a boa with its body wrapped around and squeezing, sometimes even the life out of that 98%. Robert and James, I believe you have it right on socialism. In my view, people miss the close human relationships that exist with the police states and oppression. Humans crave and depend on friendships and trust. This is not about paradigm change. It’s about aberrational humans’ intent on dominating, even destroying their species, if necessary to gain and keep control. For the last several hundred years capitalism has been their main instrument for these efforts. Some of these aberrational are evolutionary, while others have cultural origins. Whichever, human at risk from the aberrations need to defend themselves and their species. First step ends all forms of capitalism. Second, try out various forms of socialism. There are numerous examples of successful socialist societies, both current and historical which can be used as models.

Me:  Ken,

I’m advocating neither capitalism nor socialism, but the thirdness greater oneness of the separate truths, workabilities and highest ethical considerations from both perspectives and systems….and the deletion of their separate or mutual untruths. That’s what an actual integration is, and in this case the result is the profit making system of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting. Consult the logic and insight of the Hegelian Dialectic.

Me:  The new pardigm of Direct Monetary Gifting is NOT socialism and in fact would enable us to immediately eliminate all socialist re-distributive transfer taxes including for social security, and as its discount/rebate policy is strategically implemented at the point of retail sale which is the terminal expression point for all forms of inflation would also pave the way to vastly reduce the “necessity” to limit inflation via business and individual income taxes. Let us have the true “ownership society” with the new paradigm and all of its benefits for business and the individual….instead of the onerously indebted society we have now.

MS:  You have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech, etc. Not happiness nor free money.

Me:  Correct. Unless you want to escape the complete unworkability and collapse of profit making systems because of ever rising costs due to the ever increasing depreciation costs of ever increasing fixed capital. And then, after you realize that fact, you recognize that direct Monetary Gifting is the only way to save the profit making systems you admire so much. Paradigm changes always entail inversions of orthodoxies.

S: Care to show us, with some precision, how your Feee Gifts from Manna system works? Or is the whole thing, like the entire rest of the progressive canon, nothing more than Newspeakian, undefinable mush? Aimed at making the weak of mind feel good about themselves for being able to regurgitate what they perceive to be impressive sounding words? Words they don’t even understand, much less are able to define with any level of precision.

Me: Sure. You start with a $1000/mo. universal dividend to everyone 18 and older and then implement a policy of a 50% discount to the consumer/rebate of the 50% discount back to the retail merchant gifting it to their consumer. The monetary gifting is created and distributed by a monetary authority specifically mandated to do so. As final retail sale is the terminal expression point for any and all forms of inflation and is also the terminal ending point for the economic process a 50% reduction in price at that point will eliminate any possibility of inflation and will in fact integrate price deflation painlessly and beneficially into profit making systems, double everyone’s potential purchasing power and so also double the free and available amount of individual income for any and all businesses’ products and services so its wonderful for both the individual and enterprise. As hyper inflation never and cannot occur without a specific set of disasterous temporal and economic circumstances and competition is also alive between business models you would not see significant price rises throughout the entire process of creating a product and marketing it, and even if there was some garden variety inflation the discount/rebate percentage could be tweaked/increased to prevent any erosion of purchasing power. Also as I have posted in this thread these policies would end the costs of transfer taxes and almost entirely enable the elimination of corporate and individual income taxes as well so any increase in prices by enterprise would not be justifiable by anything but greed….and individuals and purchasing agents are smart enough to recognize such bad actors and rather quickly they would cease and desist in such anti-social behavior…or rather rapidly lose market share and go out of business.

There are other benefits and “knock on” effects to these policies as well like the ability to re-industrialize America due to the fact that with the dividend and discount policies we wouldn’t need to worry about unemployment. And if we had twice the purchasing power without inflation its obvious that we’d have more employment than if we didn’t have such policies and relied upon the “pulled three ways from the center” policies of liberal or conservative economic orthodoxy. You need to step outside of orthodoxies on both sides to see the efficacy of the new paradigm. And cynicism is just an opportunity to not look.

BM: Whenever some nit-wit mentions that they are in favor of ‘Free education’, I ask them “Who is going to be willing to teach your courses for nothing?” I never seem to get a straight answer.

Me:  No one of course, but if you could teach others at 50% cost to them and yet you could get 100% of your best competitive price with a discount/rebate policy….how many more students and hence more profit as an educator could you make????

MS:  Of course, it’s socialism. It takes money from somewhere and redistributes it. Stop the bullshit.

Me:  Wrong. There’s no RE to it…which is what makes distribution socialistic. Look at it and be honest Mish…or be exposed as an orthodox BS er.

BM:  Sorry, but the Rube Goldberg scheme you have described is very convoluted, but definitely not “free”.

Me:  Not a Rube Goldberg scheme. It’s simply an intelligent and insightful use of the debit-credit nature of one of humanity’s greatest inventions double entry bookkeeping….which just also happens to be the integrated underlying infrastructire of all commerce. That’s why its a new paradigm. Anew paradigm is a new idea that fits seamlessly within and creates a new pattern in the body of knowledge/area of human endeavor the paradigm is applied to. And it IS free, freeing and will make the economy free flowing.

Y:  Trump will deliver a version of himself from the left. The reaction to Trump will be an angry, loud populist of the left. The demographics favor the left. Any acceptance of Trump and his populism, any acceptance whatsoever of him, or destroys the norms and values that protect us from the Sanders’ and Chavez’ of the world. Mish, reconsider your lesser of evils position. Trump never was the lesser of evils, especially relative to HRC but even as to Sanders.

Me:  That is altogether a possibility. What we actually need is the integrative third way, not terminal and brain dead orthodoxies on the left, right or libertarian political and economic perspectives.

K:  It is a strange conundrum — the Democrat Party has effectively controlled much of the country for decades through politics, the bureaucracy, academia, the media; and yet there is no bench strength in the Democrat Party. They have to rely on burned-out ancients like Hillary! and Bernie. There are no shining stars among the Democrat place-holders in the Senate, the House, or the Governorships.

One might have expected the party with an effective lock on power to have attracted able opportunists, at least. But that has not happened. Why?

Me:  Most likely because for the last 30+ years the economy has stagnated and individual incomes have actually declined. Then, with the ultra conservative, neo-secessionist talk radio of Rush Limbaugh and the conspicy mania of Alex Jones the seed was sown for an irrationally tribal constituency that would elect a Trump.

Consider this article from Big Think https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/34-years-ago-a-kgb-defector-described-america-today?utm_source=Big+Think+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c172358565-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_27_01_48_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4db4d7150a-c172358565-43266829

The answer to disintegration is not further disintegration, but re-integration of the truths in opposing perspectives. Every word and act out of Trumps mouth is disintegrative as Mish himself has partially chronicled. Trump’s and Bannon’s belief in “The Fourth Turning” is proof of this as the fourth turning is actually just the chaotic result of not accomplishing the thirdness greater oneness of the integration of opposing economic and political truths.

KB: As long as politicians can lie to get elected and people believe the lie (and have the votes that count), such schmucks will keep getting elected.

This is the classic problem everywhere. Guys who create the problem (with such promises) do not get punished. It is not as you sow so you reap. It is someone sows and you reap. The pain is inflicted on others who are not the particpants. Assume a number of prudent people understand that there is no free lunch and vote for a candidate who does not promise it. As long they are in the minority it does not count. The”free lunch” candidate wins.

Me:  Yeah except in the case of a new paradigm of direct Monetary Gifting which no matter how many times Mish yells its socialism it ISN’T socialism because it takes from no one. RE-distributing other people’s money is the definition of socialist RE-distributive taxation so if it does not RE-distribute someone else’s income IT’S NOT socialism. It increases individual incomes and as I pointed out with a high enough percentage discount/rebate policy it absolutely will eliminate the possibility of price inflation. Retail sale is where production becomes consumption and so it is the end of the economic process. If you go to a store and buy $100 worth of groceries has anyone here ever gotten a call from the grocer saying that you owed them another $20? No, because its the end of the economic process. You own the production. So if you do the 50% debit-credit discount/rebate policy at that point you can double everyone’s purchasing power and because the merchant gets his discounts rebated back to him…everyone wins.

ML1/B1:  The monetary gifting you propose is socialism because you take from everybody to give to everybody. Value of dollars would drop and there would be large inflation if your system came to being.

Some fear that if both enterprise and the individual were to benefit so greatly from the policies of Wisdomics/Gracenomics that enterprise would just lower their wage and salary structure concomitantly and so erode the income of individuals. And of course they could, except one of the aspects of the concept of grace is sharing, and if they did do that the general populace would immediately recognize it and the enterprise would lose the good will that every enterprise depends on.

And of course the system now being reflectively based on grace as in graciousness toward/respect for others such breaking of that ethic would be subject to one of the legitimate purposes of taxation and subsidy, namely to discourage vice and encourage virtue.

Where modern macro went wrong is in not realizing that private finance’s monopolistic money creating power….is post retail sale and hence illegitimate….because the actual economic/productive process ends precisely and definitively AT retail sale. And as a public national bank can more economically do everything good that private banks can do (and a hell of a lot less harm than they have continually done for the last 5000 years) such a banking system guided by the abundant, benevolent and gifting concept of grace….seems to be the way for macroeconomics to right and reverse its seeming inabilities to bring stability and continuing prosperity to the economy and the discipline.