Jeff”

We’re you referring to my personal comments, or what was outlined in Ikink’s article?

You’re welcome to criticize my views, but i’m more interested in seeing if anyone can show that what worked in Worgi in 1933 would not work today- in short, banning the charging of interest (usury) and imposing a 1% tax on money hoarded (not on capital, property, wealth).

In Worgi, this led to increased circulation of money, full employment, funded public works projects w/o deficit spending and economic growth. It was not shut down because it was causing harm; it was shut down by the central bank because their monopoly economic power was threatened. When it was shut down, unemployment and economic conditions quickly returned to the same deplorable state they were in before.

A far more efficient economic system is possible by Bart Klein Ikink
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-far-more-efficient-econo-by-Bart-Klein-Ikink-081104-808.html

There’s just so many wrong ideas there, I couldn’t begin to know where to start.

Jeff

If you’d like to argue that all other things notwithstanding AIG made some bad PR moves, sure, I have no complaint with that.

But the issue here, and the one you don’t seem to grasp, is that the events in question were legitimate business aimed at INCREASING SALES AND REVENUE. Further, they did so for a sum so small – $153 per attendee – that they should win an award for frugality.

Yes, AIG in general has done any number of things that ought to land certain miscreants in all kinds of hot water. I said this, JS said, and the guy at CFO.com concurs. NOBODY is defending the bad acts here.

But when X does something bad, it doesn’t mean that everything Y does thereafter is a crime. Your failure to grasp the actual arguments being made here makes me wonder if you even read the post.

We welcome dissenting opinions. We do, however, prefer that you address what we say instead of some straw man that nobody is really talking about.

When you’re making money hand over fist in the private sector you can do pretty much any damn fool thing you want. But when you come hat in hand seeking public assistance because you’ve run your company into the ditch, the rules change. The rules change because the money is no longer coming from sales; it is coming out of the taxpayer’s pocketbooks.

The public (and blogosphere) does need to understand that there are costs in the cost of goods sold. The private sector also needs to understand that when revenues come in the form of a dole instead of sales, the doleor has an interest in what the dolee does with it.

As a sales and marketing teacher you understand that advertising is largely about image. When private sector welfare recipients have a tin ear to the change in what is acceptable they earn the ire of the folks who are now picking up the tab.

With AIG that includes a half billion dollar payout of deferred comp to many of the wonderful folks who broke the company. With the Detroit execs it was flying to DC in corporate jets to beg for money.

With AIG it includes holding executive retreats and marketing meetings at luxury resorts. The bitch is not that they’re meeting or marketing their products; it is that they are on the dole on the one hand and spending $24,000 at the spa and frolicing in the two-story suite at the luxury resort on the other. A little discretion goes a long way. Yeah it’s great they defrayed the cost, and $153 net cost per contact ain’t bad. But smart would have been to move the meeting downscale a notch or two and come back saying, “Thanks for your help, we’ve tightened our belts and we made $153 on each contact at our channel marketing conference this year. It’s a small first step towards getting back on our feet and repaying our debt to you.” The message they actually sent was “Oink, thanks suckers”.

Oh, and just for the record, I’ve never been employed by a “Beltway progressive advocacy org” or been a “Low-level Congressional staffer”. I have been the CEO of a for profit corporation with private sector, government and not for profit customers for 22 years. That doesn’t make me know everything, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I don’t know much of anything.

One thing I do know is that you dump the gold plated faucet handles, luxury resort junkets, corporate jets and obscene executive comp plans before you apply for public assistance. Another is that I don’t take off of CFOs this year. If they’d been doing their jobs AIG, Bear, Lehman, Merrill, Goldman, Fannie, Freddie, et al wouldn’t be in this mess today. Neither would the rest of us.

Getting Obama to deliver change instead of more warmed over inside the beltway same is going to be hard enough without this kind of foolishness. Get a grip and buy a vowel. There’s work to do, hard work, and the window of opportunity won’t be open long.

I think it’s time to abolish interest on money (usury). The Constitution authorizes Congress to coin money, there’s no reason our money system should be controlled by the secretive, unaccountable and privately owned Federal Reserve system.

A far more efficient economic system is possible
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-far-more-efficient-econo-by-Bart-Klein-Ikink-081104-808.html

Does anyone know why Silvio Gesell’s system should not be instituted in the US- even in 1 town? Banning interest and charing a 1% tax on money hoarded resulted in full employment, economic growth, increased wealth, increased circulation of money, increased long-term sustainable investment in Worgi, Austria in 1933, which had 1/3 unemployment before the scrip system was tried; the central bank shut it down.

The problems of the loony left are the same as those of the rabid right. Out at the fringes reality is trumped by ideology every damned time, and then reality needs to be massaged to meet the needs of its master. Then there’s a strange, almost mystical, belief about possessing “The Truth”, in effect elevating belief and philosophy to unimpeachable heights. Everybody else just doesn’t get it…and they’re stupid…and they ruin everything…and they may only be referred to by not so catchy playground level names.

He who shouts loudest gets heard first and most, so our political dialogue often gets dominated by these types from both sides…or should i say reduced to these two caricatures, and everybody in the middle just gets shouted down. And by the middle i simply mean anyone who isn’t pure.

Mostly what i hear is a lot of people claiming to be able to extricate us from our troubles by replicating the processes that created the troubles in the first place.

I’ve long dreamed of joining a club for people with a strong aversion to joining clubs.