In the U.S.A. a million farmers have signed an agreement with the Government to 'retire' twenty per cent of their land. Because mountains of surplus grain have accumulated, an incubus of abundance.
In France, vast crops of potatoes cannot be sold at a penny a lb., whilst hundreds of tons of peaches are left to rot in the Rhone valley, because the prices won't pay for the small cost of picking them from the trees. Yet the prices are still high for the consumers.
In Britain, the farmers expect their barley crop to be sufficient for home needs, and are accordingly pressing the Government to raise the bar against the 'dumping' of barley now on offer from the Continent at prices much lower than the cost of growing in Britain.
Here is abundant evidence proving that no Government is capable of regulating 'fair' prices, for without Social Credit finance, either the producer or consumer is inevitably victimized in the market.
Hense the rise of monopolies, who wage unremitting war to keep up prices against the consumer; hence also the rise of 'strikes' official or unofficial, in fights for better wages to meet ever rising prices. Frustrating prices; rising bank-rates; rising debt; are all evidence of something very wrong with Government policy and particularly with the Treasury and Board of Trade Departments, for in these days of abundant production, it is a sad reflection on any Government that cannot govern without piling up a mountain of unpayable debt; that cannot keep a fair balance between consumer purses and market prices; that permits restriction and destruction of real wealth like grain, potatoes and peaches to accomodate financial shortage of costless bank-created money.
There is disorder and discord in the markets because the total of prices perpetually exceeds the total sum of money consumers have to spend. This is evidence of disorderly Government, for if Social Credit finance were adopted, balance could be arranged by means of the distribution of consumer dividends, the amount to be determined by the value of the surplus of production over the sales as accounted over stated periods of time. This is the missing key to balance, order, peace and security for the nation as a whole and prosperous living conditions for every individual.
George HICKLING, Credit Notes, Aug. 1961
"Reverting to the physical realities of the productive system, it can easily be seen that the true cost of a given programme of production is the consumption of all production over an equivalent period of time..."
C. H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit