When You’re Right; You’re Right:
Good Morning Middle America, your King of Simple News is on the air.
Bear with me here, I want to re-run one more piece because I think that it is extremely important to consider at this point.
I have a 52 page booklet which remains on my desk top and one that I have read many times from cover to cover. The title is “The Chief Cause of This and Other Depressions.” The author is Leonard P. Ayres, Vice President of the Cleveland Trust Company.
Mr. Ayres wrote the booklet at the request of Josiah W. Bailey, Senator, North Carolina.
The read is nothing less than astounding, the perspective nothing less than amazing. I won’t bore you with the base content, as only deranged people like me enjoy the nuts and bolts of economics. I will however give you Mr. Ayres synopsis which states that certain guidelines should be adhered to should the U.S. choose to avoid another state of depression.
Operating in a stable and predicable environment is the key to our economic woes. As Mr. Ayres so well stated, “That kind of fundamental stability is the product of the drab and un-dramatic exercise of national integrity and self-restraint.” In other words, we have already failed the first principal.
Following are the points that Mr. Ayers suggests would keep our economy on an even keel. He begins, “It involves persistent adherence to at least seven national policies.”
1. Peace, and the enduring prospect of peace.
2. A sound money in which both our citizens and those of other countries have full confidence.
3. Balanced national budgets.
4. A sound banking system, independent of political influence.
5. The limitation of bank credit to loans fully justified by the demonstrated earning power of the assets on which the loans are based.
6. The restriction of speculation financed by credit.
7. Such negative regulation of business operations as experience may have proved necessary to prevent abuses, dishonest competition, and exploitation, but with a minimum of positive regulation designed to control wage and price competition, or to favor special group interest.
Let’s grade our federal politicians on adherence to these policies. It seems that they have scored an F-, getting none right and creating the exact opposites.
What do you think of Mr. Ayres advice? Seems like he knows what he is talking about to me. It also seems that we wouldn’t be in this terrible predicament if we had followed his guidelines.
Oh, did I tell you that Mr. Ayres wrote his book in 1935? Six years into the longest and most severe depression that this county has ever known.
So then is recession coming? Or is the “D” word rearing its ugly head? I’m going to assume that if you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs and homes in 2007 and 2008, that depression is already a fact of life.
Which of our candidates for President of the U.S. adheres to these policies? Which one suggests that we return to national integrity and self-restraint? Just one…Ron Paul. The others are still trying to figure out what went wrong in 1929.


Best article I’ve read on the subject.. Short, and right to the point.. Greed is causing problems for the best government money can buy.. We will never have a problem that can be solved by writing a check.. Our problems will be debt, and inflation..
WmA..
Willy,
I suppose it will always boil down to greed and power.
We have no concept of sustainability. Most of our lives are spent working away at jobs that we don’t really care for in order to purchase “stuff” on credit that will insure that we continue to work at jobs that we really don’t care for. The dog is now in full pursuit of his tail.
However, regardless of how well we guard against facing reality, it will show up all the same and sit patiently licking it’s chops.
Hey Mike, Mr Ayres sounds like a genius! As far as our government folks I think that they did not even show up for the test as far as their grades are concerned. Our entire financial governing system and our law enforcement system should be completely removed from the political process and politics as a whole(maybe because politics is a hole). Our entire Bush mess(including those who came before him) is based to a great deal on these 2 systems being controlled by those in power. You know what they say about absolute power! The real question is how do we depoliticise our financial and law systems without giving them too much power as well? They would need to be sub-governments with external controls by non-partisan groups. Considering our voting records we would not want to risk letting We, the people, voting on these groups. Just who could we trust? The “Czar” thing did not seem to work all that well. The SEC is run by political hacks. Maybe we should go international! Oouch! My head is beginning to hurt! Have yourself a good one Mike!
Michael,
Mr. Ayres had a good financial mind and was physically living the horrors of the Great Depression which gave him prespective that certainly Bernanke and Greenspan don’t have.
His simple rules of conduct would have guaranteed us a sound future, but our government violated each and every one.
My fear is that as our situation becomes more dire, the masses will in fact consult the perpetrators for guidance.