Do You Know?

John Darvill

1991

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 1st quarter 1991, No. 322

...The S&L scandal has received a great deal of publicity, as well it should; the complicity reaches high into the echelons of government, and they are all scrambling to cover their tracks or at least downplay their responsibility. In the meantime the general economic picture worsens. The national debt is climbing, and the amount of this debt owed by every man, woman and child in the U.S.A. has grown from $3,989 in 1980 to $12,409 in 1990, a staggering increase of over 300%. The federal deficit is now $300 billion, and, to put this in perspective, if the entire amount allocated for defense ($289 billion) was eliminated, the budget would not balance. As a result of poor economic performance many U.S. companies are cutting costs, and when companies cut costs that means layoffs. Chase Manhattan Bank, the country's second largest, is terminating 5,000 employees. McDonnell Douglas, the big defense contractor, is cutting 17,000 from its workforce. General Electric is laying off 500 of its workers from their plant in Louisville, Kentucky. Compounding all of this is the situation in the Middle East. Since that crisis erupted, the price of oil has nearly doubled; therefore, the monthly oil bill for the U.S.A. has risen accordingly. This will have a marked effect on everything; prices will rise; the economy will weaken; more jobs will be lost. A cold winter, coupled with rising prices for heating oil, will impose severe hardships for many people.

...The situation in Canada is probably worse: a huge deficit, major firms tending to relocate south of the border, the imposition of a Goods and Services tax of 7% January 1, 1991, Constitutional problems, and a very unpopular government -- all add up to a loss of confidence that does not augur well for the economy. The Gross Domestic Product has been stalled since May, which makes it an "official" recession. With the winter doldrums just beginning it could be a hard winter ahead, with no signs of any improvement.

...Every day, 40,000 children under the age of five die in developing countries. Most of them could be saved; the problem is insufficient funds, not the inability of medical science. The U.S.A. has a poor record when compared to other industrial nations in preventing childhood disease and injury. 25% of preschoolers and 33% of poor children under 5 are not immunized. 14% of children under 5 in the U.S.A. are considered to be malnourished, though they will no doubt survive many will suffer permanent damage to their health and their learning ability will impaired. It is not surprising therefore to find that 60% of the households that receive foodstamps contain children; the average amount received in constant dollars has not changed since 1980. The number of pediatric AIDS cases in the U.S.A. is rising rapidly, particularly in poorer neighborhoods; it is estimated that by 1991, 20,000 children may be infected.

...All of the above, and for that matter all of our present day social problems, are the direct result of attempting to maintain an obsolescent social system, a Price System. All of these problems are directly attributable to the inefficiency of money as a means of social administration and to the inability of this system to care for the needs of people in a technological age. We offer the following quote from the U.S. News & World Report of October 8, 1990: "Everyone knows that the political system is broken, and it is increasingly clear that the only cure is a sledgehammer. Removing the poison of money from politics must be the first step toward reform." To this we add: Why stop at politics? Let us remove the poison of money from everything and install a government of function as advocated by Technocracy for over fifty years.

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