Is a Puzzlement

“Is a puzzlement.”

The King of Siam thus contemplates a problem in the play, “The King and I”. How many of us share that feeling.

Last week a speaker told the Chamber of Commerce, “America’s economic woes result from the fact that it has consumed more than it has produced, and spent more than it has earned. All this adds up to too big a national debt. This mountain of debt stalls the economic machine. He also commended the Reagan administration, and advised all of us to cooperate with it in the national interest.

Therein lies the puzzle.

All previous economic principles have held that when you consume more than is produced you stimulate production and the economy booms. When you produce more than you consume you get a depression. Witness the tremendous production of American foodstuffs and the agricultural depression.

How can anyone support an administration that projects a budget deficit of more than six hundred billion dollars during its four years in office? This deficit adds to the debt, in four years, 50% as much as the previous twenty nine administrations accumulated, in war and peace, in one hundred ninety-two years.

This administration bulldozed through Congress a tax reduction bill, largely for the benefit of the affluent, reducing taxes by six hundred billion in four years. This just about equals the debt increase and may have caused that increase. The Director of the Budget said that nobody in the administration, except himself, understood the figures.

The supply side Reaganomics promised that a tax reduction would result in increased production which would boost the economy. It didn’t work that way because production already exceeds demand. Present production uses only 70% of existing capacity. When George Bush was running for the Republican nomination he called this voodoo economics. When he was tabbed for the Vice Presidency ha changed his tune. “Is a puzzlement.”

Now the new emphasis is on creating demand. We are supposed to go on a buying spree to get the economy going. It’s a return to the New Deal. “What has been will be again.” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). I get letters every few weeks offering to lend me money. Two banks with which I have never dealt want me to use their credit cards in addition to those I already have. The two banks issuing my present cards increase my credit allowance, and send me black checks to fill out for ready cash, all to be added to my debt to them. Do I have a moral responsibility to solve the problems of the Reagan depression by going into debt? The financial institutions seem to think so.

“Is a puzzlement.”

I took some courses in economics in college. I also took some courses in logic. Because I learned to use logic I am skeptical about the economic fantasies of the supply side economists and their political disciples.

How is all this related to religion and ethics?

Fifty years ago a business man observed to me that what was needed to cure the Great Depression of that time was the Biblical year of Jubilee. (Leviticus, Chapter 25)

A trumpet call went forth, “Proclaims liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.” These words are inscribed on the Liberty Bell, perhaps America’s most treasured relic from the past. All debts were cancelled, all servants and slaves were freed (Jubilee was a magic word to black people). All land and property (except in walled cities) reverted to the families of the original owners. It was a fresh start. Jubilee occurred every fifty years.

It had certain values. Creditors did not make long term contracts, knowing they would be cancelled at Jubilee.

Property was redistributed, breaking up concentrations of wealth.

Hope was given to those burdened down with debt.

People felt they had roots in the past.

It is an impractical idea in an industrial, rather than an agricultural society. But it is an intriguing idea. The Bible is not an economics textbook.

It is a book about personal relationships, human and divine. It would be fascinating to have a group of economists, financiers, politicos and reformers work on it.

“Is a puzzlement.”