Written by Richard Butrick   

Evidently Mr. Reich thinks the economy is some sort of a magic goose which lays a pie once a year and that he and the rest of the goose guardians have the sacred duty to see that each citizen gets their fair share. (RSN 19 Feb.). These goose guardians are like the guardians in Plato’s Republic, high-minded, super “educated” denizens of the halls of academe. Since the goose guardians can contemplate the pure forms of beauty, truth, and goodness, it is they who must administer the money pie. It is they, the goose guardians, and they alone, who have the wisdom to allocate the bounty of the magic goose in accordance with the three forms.

Which gets us to the contemplation of the fourth quid: money. Alas, contemplation of the pure form of money won’t do. It is the grubby real stuff that we want. What gives money it’s value? Alas#2, Theories abound.

The strangest is the “nothing” theory which runs somewhat as follows:

The short answer is nothing. There are no real assets, public or private, that are specifically pledged to back Federal Reserve Notes. The notes are backed by the "full faith and credit," of the United States Government. Which means accept my IOU or go to court. It is like the Mafia issuing its own currency backed by the full faith and credit of Big Angie and Fat Tony. “If anybody don’t take this currency just tell them they gonna walk funny for the rest of their lives.“

Think of it this way. Could Walmart issue currency? Could Ford issue currency? The reason the US can issue currency is that its currency is backed by Intel and Microsoft and General Dynamics and Caterpillar.
Which is the reason why currency issued by countries which have nothing the world wants is not a currency which is worth a damn. Huge successful US companies competing on the world scale are what prop up the dollar.

Maybe the piemakers should have a say on how the pie is distributed. Leave Reich and the rest of the goose guardians contemplating their fascist utopia while peeping between the potted palms of the faculty lounge. They seem to think “the poor” as some sort of species inferior to the goose guardians whose job is preserve them from extinction and save them from Darwinian realities. In fact it is the very entitlement/victim mentality drummed into “the poor” by the goose guardians that undermine their social mobility and keep them a class. Think of the breathtaking condescension of our conscience stricken goose guardians - THE POOR, indeed.