striped-pad,

Thanks for the reply. The way to avoid confusion, dualism and orthodoxy is to understand and practice Wisdom (mental integration of whatever factors are relevant and true) Wisdom is actually the objective science of truthfulness that adapts and adopts what is real, true and dynamic. It drops any untruth, agenda mongering and “reasonable” compromises that alloys the effects of an actual integration and so inhibits or prevents an actual integration. Such an attitude remains open to further truth and hence to evolution.
this is in fact the signature of good, open minded science which we see is not prevalent in economic theory and even many of the so called “hard sciences”. And by the way, the hallmark of scientific breakthrough is the integration of an aspect or aspects of the conscious flow state and the scientific method. Wisdom is the continuous integration of human consciousness/insight into organic human affairs. The pinnacle concept and practice of Wisdom is hence INTEGRATING, a mental verb, a conscious and purifying process of truthfulness. That process, known by various names (atman, kensho, satori, Grace) is a unitary state of mental/systemic/organic flow.

As far as Ptolemaic theory is concerned its relevance is this: we live in Ptolemaic times where orthodoxies and their complex and adhoc justifications are an indication that a true paradigm change is upon us and that a single deep insight can result in and be the new paradigm that is integrated into the old and that in turn becomes a thirdness-more complete oneness. Paradigm changes are marked by complete inversions ala replacement of the earth with the sun or in the present economic and monetary systems the replacement of the primary ethic of power with a new ethic of Grace in all of its aspects. As with the helio-centric insight which tranformed and corrected the inconsistencies and flaws of Ptolemy and yet left most of the system/temporal reality the same so a new paradigm of Grace/Monetary Gifting will transform the power relationships in society and yet many of the structures of the current system will remain and individuals and profit making economic systems will in fact be freed from many of the burdens built up over the period of palliative reforms placed on them since the last crisis in the 1930’s.

The way to guarantee that a new policy/paradigm remains true to its philosophical roots and has political force is to have as clear and comprehensive an understanding of the philosophical concept as possible so that clarity and focus are never lost, and then market both the improved self interests and ethicality of same to the largest constituencies effected. In the case of a new paradigm of Grace as in Monetary Gifting the individual and the small to medium sized business are a natural alliance because they both have an interest in having a supplementary gift of income go to the individual, and businesses would love to have a way of selling their product/service at retail sale at a discount of 30-40% and still get their full price because their discounts are rebated back to them. This reciprocal discounting/rebating/gifting at the very end of the economic/productive process reflects the quintessence of Grace, Flow and Cycling/Recycling/Process.

The primary obstacle to a monetary paradigm of Grace/Gifting is the almost complete monopoly on credit creation by private Banks. Governments have the ability to take back sovereign control of money creation, but it must do so with Grace as in sovereign benevolence and caring. Grace is the taking of power…..in order to give it back to the individual. And that is why a policy of a universal dividend IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY…..otherwise a monopoly on credit creation by government will inevitably become corrupted. And such Grace/Gifting is rapidly becoming more and more necessary as innovation and artificial intelligence increasingly reduce aggregate individual demand in the near future.

Contemplate the natural concept and psychological state of Grace, align policies with it, and build a grass roots social and economic movement of self interested parties and you can’t go wrong…..personally or systemically.

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Regarding Keen’s explanation of his Leave vote for Brexit

You’re right, Leave is the discerning vote even if it momentarily strengthens UKIP etc. Reference my latest post on the prior thread regarding the general intellectual environment before a paradigm change.

And you naive? The progressives who support Remain are not only naive they are blind and waaaayy cautious as well at a time (paradigm change) when confidence and forthrightness are required. No ideology or institution which has come to power in a world obsessed and based on power gives it up unless they either come to know an even deeper concept that surpasses and yet incorporates and encompasses power, or are herded in the direction of same by a grassroots movement that awakens individuals and the business community to their true self interests, and promulgates direct policies that will end their coercive threat of unemployment over the individual like a Sword of Damocles.

Purchasing power/level is what is important not fudged employment statistics. More jobs that pay less and consist of less and less hours is a portrait of the rigged/hypnotized delusion of wellness that idiot economists and TPTB want us to believe is a positive trend. Aggregate demand is decreasing and will never be/has never been adequate to attain an equilibrium. In order for high tech profit making economic systems to survive a continuing supplementary income and a reduction to retail prices is going to be increasingly necessary. Just drop your allegiance to general equilibrium theory and embrace Social Credit/Wisdomics/Gracenomics. It’s the only sane and humane way forward. Otherwise you’re just unconsciously enabling the agenda of socialism. Think through it, don’t resort to long held orthodoxies to the contrary and awaken to a new monetary and economic paradigm of Grace as in Gifting. It’s the way out and the way home to real hope instead of BS hope.

Surprisingly even good economists like Steve Keen don’t seem to grasp the unethical dominance of every other business model and nearly every individual in the economy by the Banking system controlled by the too big to fail Banks. He’s right that interest can be mathematically and theoretically paid and is not the sure fire reason why the economy is unstable, but if ever more debt is required in order to enable people and commercial enterprises to keep the economy functional, then debt service will inevitably build up to the point of un-repayability. And all the while the Banks are enriching themselves while the individual and an increasing percentage of enterprises falter and/or fail.

The system requires a new paradigm that eliminates the dominance of the Banks and brings an end to their monopoly powers and monopolized product, debt. Debt is fine, however a debt ONLY paradigm is inevitable disaster. Monetary Grace as in Gifting must be integrated into the money and Banking systems. Monopolies are false unities. The policies of a thorough integration of Debt and Free Gifting will finally evolve us past both capitalism and socialism to a new third and unitary system of monetary Distributism. The Cosmic Code applies precisely to the situation:

[ (capitalism  X  socialism)  X  Monetary Grace/Gifting = Distributism ]

We need to concentrate less on changing the minds of the DSGE economists (and even many of the heterodox) and more on a grass roots marketing strategy to small to medium sized enterprises and the individual that makes them aware of their own self interests. This kind of mental jujitsu is more efficient, and selling the self interested need is the first rule of marketing anyway.

More money directly and costlessly gifted into the hands of the individual and reciprocally gifted first to the consumer in the form of a discount to retail prices and then back to the merchant who gifted it to the consumer are the monetary and economic policies that makes an alliance between the individual and the small to medium sized business a natural one. Once the freeing effects of that are recognized by both of those large constituencies 99% of the politicians will fall in line to support it and the DSGE et all will become irrelevant.

Paradigms are generally accepted ideas, ideas change people’s reality instantaneously and so new paradigms change literally everything and even do so without the need to make wholesale structural changes.

This is The New Powell Memo I have been pushing for the last 10 years and that the online magazine Evonomics has said is necessary.

wisdomicsblog.com

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Here’s how you get the real deal on what is the best path forward in any area of human activity. You consult the world’s major Wisdom traditions. Forget about any pre-scientific dogmas attending them and mine them for their proverbial integrations of thinking and acting. Wisdom after all is the very process of the integration of the best possible thinking and acting/philosophy and policy under any given circumstance contemplated and observed by the sages of yore…..and all too often forgotten, neglected, missed, misinterpreted or invalidated by an increasingly distracted and addled modern world beset by its own dogmas hiding in plain sight and hence resistant to the significant change that an actual integration always is. Wisdom isn’t Wisdom unless its an integration of the particles of truth in two or more apparently opposing sides of an issue/argument. Wisdom is the best possible integration of ONLY those truths, and is also the best possible integration of idealism and pragmatism, ethics and action. Hence Wisdom by definition cannot be either irrelevant or merely reactionary. Contemplate Wisdom and its pinnacle concepts…..and you can’t go wrong.

striped-pad:  Aren’t you begging the question there, stating that a synthesis of the world’s major wisdom traditions leads to the best path forward?

Me:  If you truly understand what Wisdom is (the integration of only truths, workabilities and applicabilities from opposing dualities) and what the pinnacle concept and result of Wisdom’s integrations is (a third more unified state of mind/systemic condition characterized by balance, equilibrium and flow…..you realize its not begging anything but one to honestly look at it and embrace it…..because it’s Wisdom….and why embrace anything less than that when we’re thinking about a serious topic….unless of course one wants to be humorous which is fine….and actually a recognized and important aspect of the pinnacle of Wisdom itself.

That’s right, in contemplating the concept and personal experience of Grace/Flow and trying to come up with a phrase to describe and encompass it, that phrase was actually a perfect description of both the micro/fractal and macro/holographic images that ancient philosophers taught and modern physicists have re-discovered.

I’m not the conspiracy, “new age” or wigged out type actually preferring to look for natural solutions and/or integrations of natural and traditionally religious concepts that are larger wholes than mere science or religion, and so it was that in trying to resolve the signatures of both science (duality) and the western religious concepts of Trinity and Grace I came up with the expression:

An integrated Duality within an integrative Trinity-Unity as what I called The Cosmic Code.

Actually, one can also describe The Cosmic Code as Dual integrated Trinities within a Unity.

Regarding The Cosmic Code, I’m not really interested in aliens, lost civilizations, etc. etc. what I’m interested in is the most basic natural factors and realities of the cosmos and their personal and temporal expressions as Wisdom, that is the applied integrations of thought and action, philosophy and policy and of consciousness itself…..to ourselves and to our systems; and currently and most urgently the applications of it to the economic, monetary and political systems in order to renew and re-juvenate modern civilization which I and many others perceive as at a crossroads.

It is my contention that the cosmos at base is fractal-never ending and also that matter is so completely and wholly integrated with consciousness itself that while it may not exactly be a hologram, it is however holographic in the sense that everything contains an element of the one most basic aspect of the cosmos itself…..consciousness.

Everything is both separate (Dual) and also simultaneously a third oneness, and yet the most basic reality is that Trinity-Unity….and that’s just the way it naturally is. In other words what has traditionally been described as spirituality-religious experience….is actually just a completely natural and no less powerful reality. Supernaturalism is natural.

To continue this The Cosmic Code also is the expression of logic in the Hegelian dialectic:

thesis, antithesis and synthesis or as I wrote it:  [ (A X B) X C ] that is A thesis X integrated with B antithesis results in C a third synthesized/integrated and more unified reality

The Cosmic Code also describes the human being accurately as a body, a mind and a consciousness. Man is an integrated Duality Within an Integrative Trinity-Unity. Today in our science inverted reality the duality of body and mind are considered ultimate reality and consciousness at best, if not a delusion, an emergent epi-phenomenon of matter. The reality is all realities are real, but consciousness/the thrust toward consciousness is the primary and underlying  reality that is utterly integral and the driving the vector of the cosmos. The fact is that the logical template of The Cosmic Code could just as easily be expressed as [ C X  (A X B) ] or worded an Integrative Trinity-Unity that includes an Integrated Duality) It doesn’t matter, the reality is what is.

Trinity-Unity and The Cosmic Code are all over nature, our thinking, psychological therapies and most of our living…if we just look a little closer.

The financial powers that be are trying to make us all be slowly boiled frogs on a train in a super slo-mo wreck….because they think we’re stupid, apathetic and or distracted from distraction by distraction. We need to show them that we’re smarter, more ethically aware and focused than that.

Infrastructure funding is absolutely part of the way forward, but if we simply settle for that we’ll never actually stabilize the economy…and the Banks will still rule because they’ll still be playing on their home field THE PARADIGM OF DEBT ONLY. Integrating debt and monetary gifting directly to the individual and reciprocally from merchant to consumer and then back to the merchant is the real deal, the real solution, the ethical solution. There’s no equivocating with domination and manipulation. We have to see clear enough to completely understand that and not fritter freedom away with compromises and “reasonableness”.

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Again, I’m not against cost cutting, but looking for a complete economic solution via the costs of the money system leaves the unaccounted for costs of depreciation of ever increasing capital….unaccounted for…and hence an incomplete “solution”.

Three hundred years ago technology and capital weren’t nearly at the level they are now. Capital wears out and obsolesces and must be replaced and ALL COSTS MUST GO INTO PRICE. Hence, increasingly, the rate of flow of total costs/prices always tends to exceed the rate of flow of total individual incomes simultaneously produced. The economy is inherently and increasingly cost inflationary due to the costs of depreciation of capital. This may offend the intellectual vanities of economists and various pundits and undermine their less inherent causes of our economic and monetary problems. A Banking system that operates in the public interest is a key structural part of the solution and will help hold in place and re-inforce the policies that will solve the entirety of the monetary and economic problem and which are also exact reflections of a new monetary paradigm of Grace as in direct and reciprocal Gifting.

And even if one doesn’t understand or does not care to confront the fact of the problem being inherent excess costs in ratio to individual incomes, innovation and AI are going to reduce aggregate individual incomes so severely in years to come that the above policies of Gifting will be necessary to stabilize the system anyway.

The system is already digital by nature, and while algorithms will undoubtedly increasingly cybernate the accounting process the “hobby horse” confusing of freedom with chaos block chain “solutions” of libertarians coupled with their irrational computation that government is synonymous with tyranny belies the logic that if policies actually effect individual freedom and systemic free flowingness….then freedom A = A…freedom.

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Yes, money is a wonderful, fungible and functional tool, we just have to account costs more accurately is all, and then wed an economic philosophy of grace as in gifting to policies that perfectly reflect that philosophy. And of course adopting an ethic of graciousness is a personal and social solvent that gets ignored, invalidated or lost in the shuffle of our increasingly distracted lives. Grace/graciousness which is the pinnacle concept and experience of Wisdom is owned by no religion and is simultaneously the bottom line experience pointed at by all of the world’s major Wisdom traditions. Contemplate the aspects of Grace including non-grasping…and you can’t go wrong.

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I completely agree. Crypto-currencies are and will be turned into just another warped Financialization/speculation by the Banks compelled by their greed/basic psychology of insecurity, and is a distraction from true monetary and economic reform that attempts to balance the traditionally productive parts of the economy for the traditionally productive agents of the economy…the individual and commercial business models OTHER THAN Finance.

GDP is also deceptive. Retail sale, especially to the individual is the most significant metric both because it shows what the most significant aspect of the economy, i.e. human beings are able to spend, and because retail sale is the terminal end of the entire economic process. This is why implementing a macro-economic general discount at retail sale would be so powerful and would integrate the goal of Austrian economics (deflation) into the entire economy. Costs are summed at retail sale for any product or service. Hence a discount there that was rebated back to the retail merchant enables that merchant to discover and set his best competitive price (a retail discount is NOT price controls because the merchant sets his price himself BEFORE the [rebated] discount) and then the discount shifts the vector of the entire economy toward price deflation.

A retail discount actually utilizes one of the truest and most general processes of the physical universe namely what is referred to in various Wisdom traditions as the cycle of action, namely Start, Change and Stop. Every process has this precise and simple but powerful character. Economists, not generally being very wise, have missed it….and thus their theories do not accurately decipher importances and fail.

Jack:  “retail sale is the terminal end of the entire economic process”
The end of the process is profit, followed by investment in wealth creation.
Retail customers are useful idiots.

Me:  @Jack

Cute reply, but not a relevant systemic insight. Retail sale is where production becomes consumption and is a full STOP for any and all goods and services. The salient things to take from this fact are that all costs are summed at that point and that no economic agent can be harmed or manipulated at and afterward of that point. As Austrians are all the time pi$$ing and moaning about manipulation of their God the market, the above should allay their dogmatic fears. Of course it takes a long time sometimes to see the truth when one has a long standing (and false) opinion about what is economically doable.

Introduction:  This experiment is best done in a state like North Dakota which borders Canada and is relatively low population. That way it has fewer borders on states and probably fewer communities that are right across its borders and might object to the competitive prices that are part and parcel of this experiment. As Canada also borders North Dakota and has its own national policies and citizenship benefits you will have less of a tendency toward migration to North Dakota. As Banks create our money and look for reserves later the State Bank of North Dakota ought to be able to create whatever money in whatever form it so desires. The Federal Reserve may try to stop such abilities, but the state of North Dakota may be able to avoid that problem with a state voucher system for goods and services within that state.

A plan such as this could start the equivalent of a financial civil war which is precisely what we need to clarify the motives and ethical shortcomings of the present system and stimulate a grass roots movement against it. Couple this plan with My Business and Consumer Alliance For Monetary Wisdom and Grace and you’ve got a triune movement for social, economic and political freedom and justice\

The Philosophy of The Plan:  The Natural Philosophical Concept of Grace and the Will to Individual Graciousness are the intended purposes of this plan. Any regulations and any extension of the initial plan must honor and completely reflect these intentions.

The Plan

State Sovereign Banking System With an  Overriding Policy of Immanent Freedom For the Individual and Free-flowingness of the State Economy of North Dakota:  North Dakota already has a state bank as we well know. That bank and its policies of returning profits over and above payroll obligations can remain the same. In addition that Bank or a North Dakotan Reserve Bank, whichever is legally more doable, will have the following policies.

Distribution of a Universal Dividend:  In addition we are proposing that a North Dakotan individual citizen’s dividend initially set at $1250/mo. be gifted to everyone 18 years of age and older by the State Bank/State Reserve Bank of North Dakota. This dividend (whether it is in US FRNs or North Dakotan vouchers or a combination of both) is usable for the purchase of any product or service subject to certain restrictions as described below, in North Dakota, and is in addition to any income via work for pay, personal investment or pension.

Reciprocally Gifted Price Deflationary Retail Discount: All businesses have a retail product or service. Every business is invited to voluntarily participate in a program to discount their actual, best competitive and predetermined retail price at a percentage rate of at least 25%. This rate may go higher, but will not go lower. In exchange for their gifting to consumers said businesses are rebated back the entirety of their discounts of actual sales by the State Bank/State Reserve Bank of North Dakota.

Cost Accounting Board:  Also, in exchange for the benefits of this program, all enterprises participating in it will agree to open their books to scrutiny by an accounting board that will look for any discrepancies in accounting of actual costs and so price. Businesses are free to determine their best price first and then apply the discount program, but honest cost accounting  will be rigorously enforced.

Potential Penalties and Loss of Discount Privileges Regulations:

These penalty regulations are graciously applied with the intent of keeping the primary goals of this plan intact, and can be just as graciously lifted if a genuine commitment to those goals is shown by offending businesses. However, as sovereignty/sovereign power wed to the concept of Grace is also realistic justice, permanent loss of privileges will also be an unbiased possibility and fact.

Three Strikes and You’re Out:  If the Cost Accounting Board determines that an enterprise has increased its pre-determined price without any empirically factual costs for having done so they will be issued a warning for the first such incident. A second occurrence will result in a tax of whatever amount over actual costs that the enterprise received in rebated discounts. A third occurrence will result in expulsion from the retail discount program for 6 months. Occurrences of non-factual price raises are  cumulative and without a statute of limitation on the number of infractions.

Underwriting Standards and Limit to Increase in Debt Service Regulations:  Every application for loan(s) commercial or individual will be thoroughly and rigorously vetted for creditability by the State Bank/State Reserve Bank of North Dakota. Loans for speculation in stocks and bonds may be allowed through the State Bank of North Dakota and be eligible for the discount policy so long as they are for speculative investments in traditionally productive activities, however pure financializations such as in derivative products will not be allowed by the State Bank of North Dakota, and any such loans made by Banks and financial organizations other than the State Bank will not be eligible for the retail discount aspect of The Plan.

Additional consumer debt service shall be limited to 20% of the amount of individual dividend for anyone not employed, and any request for more than that will be rigorously vetted. Banks and financial organizations from outside of North Dakota can solicit loans, but will be bound by these same policies and limitations.

Commercial investments in traditionally productive activities in the state of North Dakota will not be restricted except so long as they do not conflict with the above policies.

High Tech and Environmentally Sensitive Re-industrialization Incentive:  The State of North Dakota shall grant tax incentives and the other commercial benefits of The Plan to traditionally productive businesses and industries that want to move to North Dakota, that raise productivity via cutting edge high tech and artificial intelligence, and that also show they are as sensitive as possible to their environmental/ecological impacts.

State Public-Private Alliance For Acculturation to Economic Freedom, Constructive Leisure and Positive Purpose:  Any and all public and private organizations with the intent to create the temporal universe benefits of the concept and/or experience of Grace-graciouness will be invited to cooperate with each other in various programs to enable and actualize Grace-graciousness in organizations and individuals. No prejudice is to be shown for or against individuals or organizations with religious or non-religious beliefs regarding the spiritual or psychological reality of Grace so long as they express their beliefs in a rational and peaceable way, and that shows tolerance and granting of beingness toward others who do not share their beliefs or lack thereof.

Qualification For Benefits of The Plan:  All citizens presently residing in the state for at least 6 months prior to implementation of The Plan are automatically and fully qualified. All new residents must reside in the state for one calendar year to qualify for the dividend aspect of The Plan. Everyone purchasing products and services in the state of North Dakota qualifies for the retail discount aspect of The Plan.

Additional Resulting Benefits:

Reduction of taxes

Permanent increase in individual and aggregate demand and resulting economic stability

c copyright

Steve Hummel

06/14/2016

Kevin,

As I said, I’m all for cutting costs, but cutting costs only addresses half of an inherent scarcity of individual incomes in ratio to costs. The only way to resolve both is implement policies that COSTLESSLY raise individual incomes (a gift of money) and reduce costs/prices (a discount to retail prices which is actually a policy of reciprocal gifting, first to the consumer and then back to the merchant who did the gifting). Half measures are by definition not actual solutions.

Can we confront this finally on this forum

Kevin:  Steve what you say is what envesting does.  Instead of interest lenders get a return by getting goods and services at a discount. The tokens that assist in the exchange are zero cost.  The 2% cost is the cost of administering the tokens.

Me:  Okay Kevin, but what I am saying is it does not address the additional inherent costs like depreciation. In the physical universe stuff wears out and/or becomes obsolescent and the costs of replacing such must go into prices right along, or the business is merely a zombie that doesn’t know it is going out of business. This and other factors that disequilibrate the economy is what almost everyone overlooks or ignores. I’m not out to rain on anybody’s parade or invalidate, after all your ideas do address part of the problem, I’m just pointing at realities that must be addressed. Your ideas and things like the Block chain tech may cut costs, but they ignore the necessity of also dealing with the individual income scarcity. The problem is an unresolved/unintegrated Duality (the income scarcity ratio to costs/prices) that requires an integrative third/Trinity-Unity factor, namely monetary Grace as in Gifting in order to be both individually and systemically freeing.

Kevin:  Steven,