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I was able to ask this question on the live session–thank you for your answers. Here is a description of the Nazi documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nazis:_A_Warning_from_History

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http://mises.org/daily/1803

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If the Fed buys treasuries from the commercial banks–those are treasuries the commercial bank already owns? I thought when the Fed buys treasuries, it is lending to the government and the commercial banks just get a premium from the transaction. I’m a little confused here but I think I understand the rest of the post.

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Right, I remember that in an Austrian Economics lesson of which I was particularly excited.

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Perhaps the banks have been buying land and corporations more recently.

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Wow, I have a lot of misconceptions to sort through. Thank you for your time and links. The 90% I was referring to was how much of a person’s demand account that he does not spend based on the banks’ remaining solvent after having lent out 90% of said holdings–meaning if more than 10% is withdrawn, then the bank would not have the money to give him (if operating under the reserve requirements, no more) I think I understand that a person receives money from the original lending of that money; and, therefore, that money does not represent the money stock but, more accurately, money substitutes. Is the end of the process people wishing to hold all the money that exists or to spend all the money that exists?
Is there evidence that people are holding more money? Are we now seeing this as an effect of inflation?

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Also, are the banks buying corporations and land? If so, by what means?

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But didn’t the Fed lend money to the banks at close to zero percent interest? Didn’t the Fed create that money out of thin air to lend? Or is it just the checking account balances the Fed creates when it acquires banks’ assets that is its creation of money? What is the Fed lending out when it creates credit? Does it lend out already existing money? My head is starting to spin. Is there a difference between the excess reserves banks hold at the Fed and their checking accounts at the Fed?
Your first paragraph begged another question–Do people actually hold so much money in their checking accounts to have allowed the banks to lend out 90% of it? Why don’t they put it in savings accounts or C.D.s if the balances are 90% above their spending levels? I understand a cushion but that just seems like stock piling–which may indicate some kind of fear or indecisiveness, I guess–is that bad for the economy in an Austrian view?
Also, savings accounts seem to be more or less demand deposits–maybe they require a balance of sorts but anything above that can be used as an emergency fund or whatever. Is that the idea? Are the percentages of fractional reserves different for checking accounts, savings accounts and C.D.s? I would think so.
Anyway, I guess what I was asking in the first post is: Are there any loans that the Fed has made that it can call back? And does it already have in its possession the collateral?
I believe your answer was no–or maybe it just was, that would be too destructive. Or just that the reserves are not collateral for the loans but payment for assets sold to the Fed.?

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Anything on how the church can support both public and private property? Does the church advocate stealing from private property owners to make public property? Or has property been claimed by the public before private entities? If, so how is that property maintained but by taking from private owners? Does the church think it needs to reconcile this contradiction? In other words, how does public property exist without theft and if theft is morally wrong, then how can public property be accepted? Does the church believe that public property is financed by voluntary contributions and is only justified by voluntary contributions? What do you think about this?

Still, a nagging concern about private property for me (that is not solved with the concept of public property) is that one cannot truly own himself, himself being private property, if he does not have exclusive land rights, because he takes up space and must reside on land. Is this a paradox of scarcity to which the world outside of heaven limits us? Anything on this?

Another question I have regarding the article you referred to me is about the need to work less for an item over a time frame of 1900-1999 is, do the distributionists take credit for that? We give credit to the market even while it happened during a time of government expansion. I thought that real wages stopped increasing in the early seventies, if that is so, how do we have greater use of our labor in 1999? My guess is that this point in the article is only taking bread into account because the production of bread was less hampered by government even during a time of government expansion and inflation. Perhaps the article should show that a priori suggests that our units of labor should be able to buy even more bread if not for the expansion of government and inflation.

Lastly, and thank you for your precious time, is I have interpreted the distributionists’ theory that wealth is both finite and infinite–a contradiction that must be addressed. It is finite and must be distributed to raise the condition of the poorest but infinite because it calls for a sustainable standard of living to which is better than previously obtained even with greater population and uncontrollable events such as natural disasters. Unless, of course, it is their objective to control the population?–and the natural world? It is a free market belief, in my understanding, that wealth is only finite in so far as it can be oppressed by force; conversely, it is infinite in so far as freedom from force (distributionists policies and such) is enjoyed.

Thank you,

Patricia Colling

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Dear Travis, Thank you for your post. Actually, I was brought up Catholic but I always looked at mass as a spiritual nourishment and it had more significance to me it would seem than other family members–I didn’t and don’t think of my involvement with the Church as a political position. I guess I never paid much attention to the political nuance or the leadership in the Church for that matter as I developed my devotion to the faith. Even when I went to see the Pope in the early nineties (I think I was just asked if I wanted to go–of which, I’m pretty sure I was just like, “sure, why not”). Anyway, I didn’t have a relationship with the papacy like it appeared the thousands around me did; but I did appreciate that there were more people than I realized of whom faith mattered. Now that I am more aware of things political, and as I have graduated my original spiritual obligation of practicing a religion to contemplating the life of Jesus Christ, I am prepared to discuss any misguidance I perceive. That is not to say that I haven’t accepted the governance of the Church; I think I just view it as a structure that keeps me challenged and honest rather than some infallible entity–not to say that entity doesn’t fall into God’s plan. It’s so easy to dismiss the world around me when my relationship with God has always been so much more personal; but, over the past few years I have found that the bible and faith are so relevant to the paradigms in which we find ourselves in this world. So far, I have no problem with the Roman Catholicism being the “one apostolic Church” but that is not to say that I dismiss other communities of faith or find mine infallible. Thank you for your prayers, I am happy for you for your blessing and pray for you in regards to your spiritual life as well as your health and safety while fulfilling your life in this world. Sincerely, Tricia

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correction: net benefactors should be net beneficiaries

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This is all very interesting. Another point I came across in the last live session was that the way slavery was abolished peacefully in some or most–I’m not sure–areas was through setting deadlines by which the slave owners unloaded their slaves by selling them into areas that still allowed slavery–hardly righteous. I think it is important to note how the pro-freedom societies benefitted from the slave trade and/or slavery in the pro-slave societies even though they somehow thought their consciences were clear. I’m not suggesting that violent revolution is the answer–I’d prefer protests and boycotting–has that ever worked for the abolishment of slavery in the conventional sense? Let’s face it we have slavery now through redistribution but people don’t know if they’re the net benefactors or net contributors, right? As a side note, I’d like to see more energetic exposure to the extraordinary injustices the state inflict on those that are too self-sufficient or too removed from taxes and regulations for its liking. Tricia.

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Kevin, I was just listening to U.S. History to 1877 and was troubled by the commitment to the institution of slavery by the South presumably because the abolition of it was too complicated. Perhaps I wanted editorializing in the lecture that would have inspired in me a sense of justice for how things unfolded. I think I may have been goading in my last post and I apologize for that. Now your work is on my list of things to read.

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I just can’t see how people that speak so dearly of freedom and inalienable rights, past, present and future, could be so protecting of a situation that supports slavery of any form. Did the founders mean to have a system that would reduce the use of slavery until it was gone or not? Where is the push back on a society that has closed the door on freeing slaves for practical purposes? I saw the movie, Lincoln, and I have a difficult time bashing the notion of voting for the 13 amendment.

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I’m coming away with the notion that the “Civil War” did have a place for ending slavery–it doesn’t look like it was going away–and, indeed, no matter what the issues were, they all seem to come back to slavery since it was so important to the economy of the South. Unfortunately, what was created afterwards, in my estimation, was an insidious slavery that would worsen in time. I have a difficult time being as sympathetic to the South as the professors. It’s one thing to be suspicious of and appalled by the North but to not be so for the South or to even be apologetic for the South is not something I can countenance.

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