Wednesday 21 March 2012

Government Explained


Every day a barrage of information pours into our homes and workplaces via the internet. Some of it is trustworthy. However, a great deal of the informal news is suspect. The following was sent on a circular message from a trusted source in Australia, but I cannot vouch for the set-up from which it originates.

The video is about an inquisitive alien who visits the planet to check on our progress as a species. He gets into a conversation with the first person he meets. The alien discovers that we live under the rule of a thing called "government", and wants to understand more about what "government" is, what it does, and why it exists.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUS1m5MSt9k

Quite thought-provoking, and highly discussable.

Monday 12 March 2012

Real Economics versus Finance


The Question
Some time ago a colleague asked me to spell out, clearly and simply, the difference between Social Credit and Monetary Reform. To which I gave the following answer: To every difficult and complicated question there is an answer which is simple, easy to understand – and wrong. Nevertheless, after long deliberation, I think I may be able to give a better response.  

The Answer
Social credit theory draws a clear distinction between the real economy and the financial economy. Since there is no necessary, i.e., proven or scientifically established, relationship between the two, it follows that reform of the money system will not, on its own account, result in reform of the real economy.

Comment

Although the answer is not wrong, it may be difficult to understand. So steeped are we in the ways of the world as we are taught in schools, colleges and the experiences of everyday life, that it is difficult to sift fact from pure fiction. The fact is, there are two economies, the real economy and the financial economy. When we are told by the news media that ‘the economy’ is doing well, it means that the financial economy is doing well. Hence we are led to assume that the real economy is doing well, when it may well be doing very badly indeed.

The real economy consists of all the goods and services available to humanity within a given area on the earth’s surface, in a town, a county, a province, a country or the world as a whole. Material goods produced for sale on the market form a part of the real economy. But they form only a small part of the real economy as a whole, an economy which comprises the land, the seas, the sky, the rainfall, the minerals under the earth, and all plant, animal and human life forms. Although the real economy can exist without the financial economy, the reverse does not hold true.

The financial economy is the money-value economy. It accounts only those things which are exchanged for money. Thus the gifts of nature, the forest trees, the growing plants, the sunlight, have no value unless or until they come into the supply chain of the financial economy. Two curious facts follow from this. Firstly, the financial economy fails to take into account the existence of certain goods and services vital to its survival. These include not only the gifts of nature, enormous in themselves, but also the vast swathes of the labour of human hand, eye and brain which falls outside market forces. And secondly, the financial economy does put a high money value on certain ‘financial products’ which have no real value whatsoever.

Monetary reform which does not reform our understanding of the true relationship between the real and the financial economies is a waste of time and can only result in frustration.

Friday 9 March 2012

Abortions on Labour Wards –the Law


News, Midwives must take charge of abortion says court
29 February 2012: Judgment was handed down today in the case of two senior midwives from Glasgow who have a conscientious objection to working to procure abortions. The midwives have been told that they must accept the decision of their hospital management that they must oversee other midwives performing abortions on the labour ward.


From website of Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child.

Note also SPUC's recent campaigb to publicise the nature and extent of sex education in junior schools.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Peter Maurin Industrialism

How much more significant is the comment of Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-94) on education than when he originally wrote it before the end of the nineteenth century, or even when Peter Maurin quoted it before the mid-twentieth century.

INDUSTRIALISM
by Peter Maurin, Catholic Worker, 1946

It Started With England

Lenin said:
“The world cannot be
half industrial
and half agricultural.”
Lenin made the mistake
of industrializing Russia.
Lenin industrialized Russia
because the Japanese
industrialized Japan.
The Japanese industrialized Japan
because the Americans
industrialized America.
The Americans industrialized America
because the Germans
industrialized Germany.
The Germans industrialized Germany
because the English
industrialized England.
It started with England.

A Few Englishmen

R. H. Tawney said
that the Englishmen wear blinkers.
Because they wear blinkers
the Englishmen
lack vision.
Because they lack vision
the Englishmen
are very strong
for supervision.
And supervision
is not a substitute
for vision.
A few Englishmen
got rid of their blinkers.
Among the Englishmen
who got rid of their blinkers
one can name:
William Cobbett,
John Ruskin,
William Morris,
Arthur Penty,
Hilaire Belloc,
G. K. Chesterton,
Eric Gill.
The best of all
is Eric Gill.


Legalized Usury

“The sex problem,
the marriage problem,
the crime problem,
the problem of armaments
and international trade,
all those problems
could be solved
if we would recognize
the necessity
of abolishing
trade in money,
and especially
the international trade in money;
that is to say,
the usury,
the legalized usury,
practiced by the banks
under the protection
of their charters
with the support
of the so-called
orthodox economists.
That is the first thing
to be recognized.”

God and Mammon

Christ says:
“The dollar you have
is the dollar you give
to the poor
for My sake.”
The banker says:
“The dollar you have
is the dollar
you lend me
for your sake.”
Christ says:
“You cannot
serve two masters,
God and Mammon.”
“You cannot,
and all our education
is to try to find out
how we can
serve two masters,
God and Mammon,”
says Robert Louis Stevenson.