Capitalism gets a bad rap for “eating itself” mostly because it does just that if left to its own shortsighted devices. This is exactly why it should never be given access to our government where it can purchase even more favorable conditions for itself at the expense of basic survival of the species.

We have, for almost a half-century, had a sovereign fiat currency that Congress can utilize as a no-cost commodity to steer the economy where it wishes it to go, but the corruption and ignorance of our elected officials have sold the populace a myth of scarcity surrounding the creation of currency. This myth is made believable by the fact that it describes how every entity that isn’t the US Congress interacts with that currency as a “user”. By simply projecting those rules and values onto the monopoly issuer of the sovereign currency the myth of scarcity is perpetuated.

If Congress desires to reward socially beneficial actions by investors it simply has to find the votes, not the money. The money appears for any appropriations as an authorized payment from Treasury spending accounts via keystrokes at the Fed. Spending creates the excess reserves required to purchase bonds, so the monopoly issuer of the money cannot “borrow” revenue to spend. Treasury bonds are, without a gold reserve to defend, mostly just welfare for banks and the uber-wealthy that trade in them.

Congress is also given Constitutional authority to tax and regulate commerce. One would think that between rewarding beneficial behavior, making laws preventing harmful behavior, and taxing the profits from ill-advised behavior that we should live in a virtual utopian balance between ourselves and nature. We have passed the point of wishful thinking about such control of commerce and the currency that drives it and are now facing extinction for our past mistakes. We need, more than anything else now, a better breed of Congresscritter.