Creating Honest, Debt-Free Money Locally

by Dan Sullivan

The ultimate solution is for each sovereign nation to create its own currency and either spend that currency directly into circulation or give it on a per capita basis. As long as banks enjoy the privilege of creating legal tender out of thin air and lending it into circulation, the most basic injustices will continue. We therefore applaud efforts to reform national currencies by the American Monetary Institute in the United States, and Positive Money in the United Kingdom, and consider their proposals ethically and economically sound. Continue reading

Thoughts on the Tree of Knowledge

by Dan Sullivan

Some theologians have speculated that the story of Adam and Eve was a metaphor for the transition from hunter-gatherer tribes to agricultural tribes.

In modern versions of the Bible, God commanded Adam to till the garden. However, Young’s literal translation says, “And Jehovah God taketh the man, and causeth him to rest in the garden of Eden, to serve it, and to keep it.” Nothing about tilling. Continue reading

Bastiat’s Broken-Window Error

by Dan Sullivan

Failure to appreciate the economic Law of Rent, or to recognize that interferences with the natural laws of distribution spawn interferences with production, leads one to conclusions that seem to make perfect sense, but which don’t reconcile with reality An example of this is in Bastiat’s essay, “What is Seen and Not Seen,” often referred to as “The Broken- Window Fallacy.” Continue reading

Pop Dread and Corn Pone Opinions

by Dan Sullivan

The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so. — Josh Billings

Many of my Georgist colleagues don’t want to hear more about global warming, which is all right with me. However, there is a much larger issue behind the global warming issue, and it is particularly pertinent to the difficulties that Georgists encounter. Continue reading

The Eighteen-Year Real Estate Cycle

Much is being said about the accurate predictions that seem to have been based on this phenomenon (and at this year’s CGO conference in Cleveland, the matter will be explored further). To help focus our thoughts on this complex subject, eight Georgist thinkers recently participated in an email conversation, excerpted here. Continue reading