Recently, a friend of mine complained about a spate of burglaries that had occurred near her newly bought home. A house down the street from hers had been burgled in the weeks before, and her next-door neighbor had been burgled not long afterward. In the latter case, the thieves had made off with a large-screen plasma television set and a laptop computer, apparently having walked out of the house with them in broad daylight.
Jukebox economics is a suitable description of the notion that the economy can only be kept going if the government feeds it quarters. Otherwise something bad would happen. Then as the signs of contraction appear, the establishment immediately boasts that a well-timed cut in administered rates will keep the “recovery” going. The problem with this economyth is that short-dated market rates of interest have always declined with a contraction.
This is an amazing animation by Nina Paley, “America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist” (and creator of the amazing animated (and free online) film Sita Sings the Blues, given rave reviews including 4 stars by Roger Ebert).
The USA Today reports that a “small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.”
The oracle for the nation’s news insists that the printing up of local currencies “help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.”
[Chapter 1 of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, 1953]
