XII
Conclusion
Typical of the rape of our free economy in this century (since the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913) was the Administration's much-heralded economic recovery of 1972. Three of the nation's leading "economists," Paul A. Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Walter Heller, contended that heavy deficit-spending had initiated the recovery, and that it was still needed to avoid aborting it. As reported in the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), "Their testimony indicated they would welcome a deficit in the neighborhood of $40 billion."
Today, giant corporations are reporting record earnings while middle- and lower-bracketed Americans are finding tax and price burdens unbearable, and welfare demands insurmountable. Yet both the Administration and industrialists see good times in the offing.
Prior to the Great Depression of the early thirties, President Hoover's confidence that "prosperity is just around the corner" was based on the same premise. We are presently witnessing a replay of the prelude to those fateful days. Ironically, the Pollyannas of easy wealth refuse to see it, or to do anything about it, even though its ramifications are plainly in evidence all around us.
It is later than most of us think. Unless we are somehow awakened to the facts of life, Dr. Quigley's nightmare will shortly be upon our heads. It's simple arithmetic. Working in its favor are the approaching saturation points of inflation, pollution, and crime. These will not be arrested by the same device that created [p. 64] them—all assurances from politicians and speculators on inflation notwithstanding. They will be restrained only if the American people can somehow be properly educated: first, and foremost, in the true meaning of Judeo-Christian standards; and second, in a medium of exchange that is fair to all (you can't have one without the other).
The answer to ill-distribution of wealth is not a higher minimum wage, but a lower maximum, and full recognition that the scientist, the technician, and the lowest grade of menial labor are interdependent (again, you can't have one without the other)—each deserving of a decent living wage. In short, a regard for the rights of others. Whether or not this was the intention of Karl Marx, it was certainly the intention of Christ and Moses.
Given constitutional money, along with free and ethical competition, no wage or price controls would be necessary. With "counterfeit money" and job discrimination, all the controls in the world will avail nothing.
* * *
A bank interest rate of 10% means that 10% of the money/credit thus created is drawn from the normal economy—even though the money supply has been greatly inflated by this new creation. Withdrawal of money from circulation fosters recession for all who are unable to hedge against it with investments. Since investments rise in price to compensate for depreciated dollars, holders are spared from the ravages of inflation—and often handsomely rewarded.
The reader will be quick to respond that bankers reinvest their profits—which is indeed true; but never forget for one moment that money is invested to make money, and that you can't make money from those who don't have it. It must, therefore, be invested in luxuries for those who do.
High interest rates do not curb inflation as claimed. In the final analysis, they merely exclude the lower-income brackets from the marketplace—leaving available goods and services exclusively for those who can still pay the price. Is this the solution? Some politicians seem to think so. [p. 65]
Those who survive inflation by hedging in the stock market must surely realize that what is gained in this manner—and more—will be taxed away to support those whom they deprive. The process degenerates its "beneficiaries" and its victims alike.
Employment abounds, to be sure (consult the want ads in your daily paper), but who wants to exist on a $2 wage when it takes $10 to live, when relief pays better? Recipients of relief (under any condition) are no less honorable than well-paid featherbedders. They are less of an onus to society than the burgeoning nonproductive bureaucracies established to manage an unworkable economic system.
Despite all the ballyhoo to the contrary, we have neither free enterprise nor free competition. Bankers dominate industry. Organized labor dominates employment. Politicians—with an eye on the ballot box—support both.
Only when overexpansion of money (inflation) is curbed will free enterprise and free competition be possible. Only then will employment and production return to factory and farm where life-sustaining commodities are produced; only then will there be enough for all, at prices all can afford. No longer will precious food rot in the field while able-bodied Americans rot on relief. Without a constitutional money of the people, inflation will continue to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and relief rolls and relief benefits will increase in direct proportion. Taxes will bankrupt and pauperize the great middle class. The "golden age" envisioned by Dr. Quigley will be at hand.
It becomes clearer by the day that only a benevolent dictator with an iron hand can rule this world fairly. The Lord Jesus Christ alone has those qualifications. It is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity that, in the supreme crisis of man's iniquity, He will return to assume command. In the meantime, the vast majority of that same Christianity accepts—and lives—the economics of Mammon.
Accept or reject—as you prefer—whether or not the "last days" are at hand. None, however, with the ability to appraise the simple law of cause and effect will deny that we are entering the end of an era (barring drastic reform). "Babylon the great" will have "fallen." [p. 66]
A fair medium of exchange is the only means by which wealth (presently consumed by waste, war, and destruction) can be diverted to peaceful use by a deprived and suffering humanity. The Constitution of the United States provides accordingly. Let no man tamper with it!
To repeat a line from its introduction, this book contains nothing new. Its author is a mechanic, not an economist. His solitary boast is common to every other normal human being—the ability to distinguish right from wrong. He may have erred in minor details, for which he begs the reader's indulgence. But the body of his contentions is correct—corroborating scores of economists and churchmen whose works span the life of our Republic. He pleads consideration of their views by economists in all the universities across our land—especially the many with a Christian or Jewish orientation; he bids them stand and be counted among the defenders of faith in God and in the Constitution of the United States, which He unquestionably inspired. [p. 68]
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