1. Just Price

Make money from labor,
Not money from interest,
You immoral fucks

- St. Thomas Aquinas

This was before banking
And Mastercard.
When money came alive
And ate your babies

re: Salamanca School

2. Natural Law

Rights exist in nature,
Only to be claimed by the Bill of.
Rights exist in nature,
Only to be claimed by Jesus

re: Aquinas

3. Laissez Faire, Laissez Passez

Let things alone,
Let them pass,
Stop regulating,
You communist bastards

re: Smith, Mill

4. Quantity Theory of Money

MV=PT

Money times Velocity (of circulation)
Equals Price times Transactions

… and V and T
are constant

Print more money,
Get more inflation
Hence the lira,
Which I wipe my bum with

re: Milton Friedman, Monetarism

You Friedman,
Can suck it.
V and T aren’t constant
As the empirical data shows

- Keynes

5. Rent

A-Rod is a factor of production,
He’s paid $252 million,
But he’d probably work for less
Cause what the fuck,
He’s Hispanic. (I know, I know)

The difference is called ‘rent’
Unearned income, so to speak,
Rent is on top of profit,
Like whipped cream on a sundae

6. Wage Fund

Wages = Kapital / Labor

Capital sets aside some money,
For labor (to spend at Walmart).
This is the wage fund.

If the population is big and desperate
(i.e. Indochine)
They’ll be willing to split the wage fund
3 billion little ways

So, stop breeding you damnable fools,
You’re just fucking yourselves over

- Mill

You sir, are a douchebag
Workers create capital,
As per the waiter selling food

- Henry George

Yeah, I guess you’re right
But at least people know who I am

- Mill

7. Exploitation of Labor

Labor makes the damn thing,
(labor = value)
Capital takes the profit
What the fuck

- Marx, Smith, Ricardo (labor theory of value)

Capital put up the money
And took the risk,
So bite me

- Neoclassicists

8. Say’s Law (Supply Side)

Supply creates its own demand,
If you sell stuff,
You have money to buy stuff

Egg before the chicken,
Supply before demand

- Jean-Baptiste Say

Chicken before the egg,
Demand before supply

9. Gluts (oversupply)

Buy more shit,
So other people can have money.
If you produce too much stuff,
No one will buy
(as per the VW Phaeton)

- Malthus, Veblen, Keynes

If you make something,
That will pay a wage,
Which will be spent
(as per the New Deal)

10. Transformation Problem

If value is the amount of labor,
A labor intense product will sell for more,
Like organic food

- Marx

If value is set by the market,
People will shop at Walmart
For slave-labor goods.
And luxury hippies aside,
They do

- Keynes, Austrian School

11. Liquidity Preference

If you have lots of cash,
You’re liquid
If you buy shit,
You’re not

If you’re playing Monopoly,
Buy everything you land on
But if you want to retire,
Stop shopping you Gucci whore

12. Natural vs Market Prices

Given competition,
And survival of the fit,
Prices should drop
As low as they can go
(while feeding the producer)
That’s natural

In the real world,
The market (Supply & Demand)
Sells jeans for 200$
And a monopoly
Charge 100$ for Windows

Essays:

1. Magnificent Dynamics

The classical economists,
Smith, Ricardo, and Mill
They saw wealth as national,
Not feudal.
They saw value as labor

It’s been displaced by Marginal Utility,
The value that consumers get from a good,
Not what producers put in.
Hence, Coca-Cola

Keynes

I’m sleepy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

Posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 in McGill, Personal, Poetry.