Detroit problem? Nothing to it

Holman Jenkins explains how the Detroit bankruptcy is racist.

1 comment:

Grim said...

As economists have come to understand that money shortages are essentially illusory, if infinite and unlimited money is made available to some but not others, then only racism can be the reason.

Well, not only racism. It could also be prejudice of other kinds.

Or just ignorance, as he says:

But scientific revolutions take time. The world did not immediately embrace Galileo, and it will not immediately embrace the discovery that money shortages are illusory. This tragedy of ignorance is now unfolding in Detroit, where city fathers still operate under the ill-informed belief that the way to deal with a money shortage is to cut spending and increase revenues. Lord, forgive them. They know not what they do.

When Jesus says, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and onto the Lord that which is the Lord's," one possible reading would be that money really is Caesar's, because it is the only thing that he made in the same way that God creates: ex nihilo.

That's not true for coined money, which is made in part from natural materials like gold or nickel. But we have come up with a way of creating money out of nothing, at will, which the government can give and take away with divine-like ease.