In reply to a post on Ellen Brown’s forum

Yes John David, precisely. Including and integrating both structural and paradigmatic ideas is the widest most thorough integration possible, and enables the combination of the truths and valid observations in both orthodox and the major heterodox theories. It also penetrates to the level of ideas/paradigms THEMSELVES. Why is Public Banking such a relevant idea? Because it points at the specific business model at the heart of the problem….whose idea/paradigm monopolistically dominates every other business model and everyone individually in the economy. Deal with that both structurally and paradigmatically…and you’ll have a comprehensive solution.

Ideas rule our lives. Paradigms are generally held ideas and hence are more resistant to change and/or more difficult to think outside of/imagine alternatives to. Hence Logic and paradigmatic adherence to/belief in can appear to be completely linked even if  the current paradigmatic idea is completely unbalanced.   In addition linguistic and definitional meaning are logically aligned with each other.

An unchallenged/unopposed monopolisitc idea/paradigm is a fundamental imbalance (absent/missing Duality) which in order to reflect both physical/temporal nature (Duality) and be fully and completely human (Trinity-Unity) must  find in this case an opposing/balancing idea with which and in order for there to be an integration and hence a third, actual and more complete reality which is a combination/expansion of only the mutual truth(s) and workabilities/applicabilities of the two apparently opposed ideas/paradigms.

The current financial/money and economic system monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only and so Loan ONLY is one such example of the above analysis. Reformers are searching for the most valid, correct and comprehensive and so the best idea with which to balance these paradigms.  I am suggesting that the concept and fact of human wisdom, and according to at least three of humanity’s major wisdom traditions, their pinnacle concept and experience of satori, Atman and Grace (and what psychologists call “the flow state”) ….is precisely the idea that meets that challenge. I shall hereafter refer to this idea/state as Grace as it is the western concept of flow.

This (hands and fingers held apart in front of forehead and also as if something from without and something from within) is integration/wisdom. (hands and fingers slowly come together) ….and this is Grace. (hands and fingers repetitively come together faster and rise higher until the hands and arms come apart and individual begins to walk around and look at the present time environment with open mouthed wonder and awe eventually becoming interested in a series of things shown by using the hands to grasp, type, read, look, hands moving flowing, twisting momentarily grasping each other, then moving together as if they are almost violently opposing each other then all of a sudden fingers and hands coming together in integration as the eyes widen in astonishment, hands continue their dance again and draw an imaginary circle within which the hands touch and manipulate spots in that circle and then begin to take spots from outside of the circle and from increasingly remote and opposite places and directions, then hands grabbing oneself in the head and the heart simultaneously with a jolt and surprised expression and then the head and the ass simultaneously with same reaction plus a lingering smile, laughter and hand clap, walking around as hands touch each other and move apart in a continuous motion.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler.”     Albert Einstein

If the economy merely tinkered with by shallow and ineffectual policy or left entirely to itself was always and still is in a continuing state of Individual income scarcity in ratio to costs/prices and hence economic disequilibrium….then the recent asset bubble requires a debt jubilee and continuing policies that virtually if not perfectly equilibrate the system as well.  Thus a debt jubilee is necessary to quickly free individuals and businesses from the effects of the recent delusive belief in general equilibrium, and a new policy and paradigm of monetary grace/gifting to the individual in the form of a universal dividend and a macro-economic policy of a discount to retail prices that maintains the equilibrium virtually accomplished by that dividend policy is also required.

The latter policy based on the ratio of total costs of consumption over total costs of production for a given period would actually greatly reduce retail prices and so enable price deflation while still maintaining a profit making system because part of the policy would be to rebate the entirety of participating merchants’ discounts back to them so that they could be whole on their overheads and margins. This ingeniously makes such policy fit seamlessly within profit making systems while simultaneously taking the sting out of market forces for the individual who has so long been dominated and manipulated by them.

These policies would also increase the so called velocity of money which indeed under orthodox policy is an indicator that the economy is flowing relatively more freely due to higher than normal ongoing borrowing and Keynesian stimulus, but contrary to orthodoxy actually does not add a single penny to the real problem, the chronic scarcity of INDIVIDUAL incomes. What velocity and the quantity theory of money miss/ignore is the fact that all business revenue must be sieved through the costing/pricing/expensing system and hence the vast majority of it is taken up in overhead payments and then virtually all of what remains is retained as business profit….leaving the individual to scratch for additional employment which cannot rationally be provided by business,  and leaving businesses with the onerous, precarious and actually unnecessary task of trying to make a profit in a system chronically scarce on individual incomes with which to purchase their product/service. The twin mechanisms/policies of a dividend and a discount resolve the individual monetary scarcity and the chronic inflation so erosive in modern advanced economies by pin pointing the policy effects on both the individual and the system.

Time is both the moment and the continuous flow of moments. At least part of Consciousness is awareness of both of Time’s aspects and the ability to make specific conscious changes in the temporal universe.

Understanding the Dual nature of Time and given human consciousness we can see that

#1 Consciousness is the only force that can actually specifically change the economy because it (the economy) is not conscious and so cannot specifically change itself, but at the same time the economy can change but only in the sense that it becomes an intensity of its presently constructed state . Why? Because the physical world is in continuous but unconscious flux itself, i.e. changing but again only in intensity of its presently constructed condition, not in any specific, i.e. conscious way….and  

#2 These truths are also reflective of, and inextricably intertwined with Spirituality in that nowness (conscious experience of the moment) and newness (consciousness of the flow of moments and hence consciousness of change and also the ability to consciously make specific changes to the economy’s realities) are both native to humans who are spiritual by nature and also (the actual conscious sensing of nowness and newness) have always been associated with and considered necessary for higher states of being in spiritual traditions themselves.

Hence human spirituality generally, and nowness and newness specifically are aligned with, relevant to and necessary for a complete understanding of the actual states and problems of the economy…and of their resolution as well.

Empirical and mathematical discussion of A + B

Discussion of Wisdom and Grace as its conscious and pinnacle state

Hence if the economy itself, that is as it is presently constructed is cost inflationary by nature it will remain that way in each proceeding moment  and also tend to become more intensely and/or completely cost inflationary until it breaks down and collapses. Consciousness and consciousness of this fact are the only ways that specific changes can be made to relieve a condition and/or craft policies that will actually solve them, and any calls to simply leave the economy/the market alone to “work  its miracles”  is mistaken, idolatrous religiosity and false projecting of consciousness onto the economy which in fact is not conscious, but only a system as presently constructed….unless of course policy perfectly reflective of a high, freeing and free flowing state of human consciousness like for instance Grace…was fully implemented.                                                                                                                                   

MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) is accurate and unorthodox in what they say about sovereign currencies, the impossibilities of bankruptcy for a nation that creates its own currency and particularly in the fact that such governments face “no financial constraints”. Where they turn completely orthodox however is in their preoccupation with full employment. Employment is not the primary purpose, or in view of the incredible productive capacity  we now have, the most intelligent purpose of economics, and it most certainly isn’t the only purpose thereof. The most basic purpose of economics/the economy is to consume what is produced in the most efficient way possible, and beyond that as an ethical issue which necessarily adheres to any and all human activities, to free the individuals and business entities existing within any particular economy. Confronting and combining these actually undeniable facts and then crafting policies that would accomplish such economy and such freedom would then make the system serve all of mankind, not a wealthy and powerful elite or a particular business model.

Intellectuals of whatever stripe and whatever perspective have more than enough “brain power” to resolve our problems. What they don’t have enough of is the psychological reality and experience of Love and of the even more integrated and wisdom creating reality and experience of Grace which is actually the willingness and ability to Love in action, in other words Love and act. And the lack of these experiences…makes all the difference in the world.

Look around at intellectuals, look around at yourself because everyone has plenty of intellectual capability. Do you actually see very many…or any of them that has confidence and hope for the future? No. They are all fearful of the future. And I’m not saying that fear isn’t or can’t be a rational emotion. I’m saying there is something enforcing and keeping in suspension fear and anxiety. Something that is actually resolvable, something systemic that is missing in intellectual’s analysis of our system(s). That missing analysis and the policy solutions that must be implemented to resolve this most basic problem are the topic of this blog/my work. But that is not what I am presently talking about. I am now talking about how that unresolved problem keeps intellectuals and everyone from having the experiences necessary to break free of and consciously ascend to higher, better, more rational and more ethical states of emotion and being. If one habitually does not have confidence they will overwhelming choose not to act. If they continuously fail to act they not only do not garner confidence via experience they will strongly tend to descend over time into hopelessness and consequently they will cycle through resentment, antagonism and anger, sometimes descending even into fear if they are overtly threatened and finally settling into cynicism, “realism” or apathy. Without the reliable and consistent occurrence of the internal emotional states of confidence and hope….love becomes a distant, unreal, cynical and/or eventually “impossible” “reality”. And as with lack of confidence, lack of the reality of Love prevents acting with Love and so the reality of the experience of Grace/Love in action….is almost entirely prevented. Hence there is almost no actual reality on the experience at all.

I ask you, what would guaranteeing the individual a satisfactorily middle class income whether they worked or not do to alleviate the constant and hence habitual anxiety, insecurity, fear, resentment, anger, antagonism, cynicism and hopelessness that characterize so much of and so many in their economic and monetary life? And what would moment to moment and continuously eliminating these negative states do for the increased experience and hence the actualizing reality of Confidence, Hope, Love and Grace?

Resolving, completely resolving economic and monetary life for the individual is the single most relevant and powerful thing we can do for ourselves and our posterity, for our nation and for the world. Confront that without flinching or compromising and a movement to implement it becomes natural, becomes inevitable…and will win!

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

It seems that every two thousand years or so Grace tries to help Man understand himself better. This time it will be able to not only do that, but also help us understand and apply policy in the economic and monetary systems so that individual freedom and systemic free flowingness can become the reality.

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If a centralized policy effects and creates monetary and economic freedom for the individual…it is freedom. This is what both libertarians and socialists forget/miss. Monetary and economic freedom would free individuals to opt out of situations and associations they did not want. Unconditionally free the individual monetarily and economically…and freedom will sort itself out.

Steve Hummel 08/08/2015

Written in a series of definitional and conceptual vignettes it is an exegesis of Grace and both its mental and temporal functional, pragmatic and ethical integrations. In this sense it mirrors the moment to moment stream of consciousness character of the seminal American novel On The Road by Jack Kerouac. A non-fictional flow of Wisdom.  Economics needs to integrate with and get  “on the road” of the Wisdom of Grace, satori, the Atman. The sages of old call out to economic theorists and us all to be disciples, Bodhisattvas and gurus. Let us look at and pay attention to what they say.