I realize it's obligatory to say something about the recent election. That should just about cover it. Moving right along, It's been a little slow this past month for Matters Irish. That's okay, these things happen. This time of year seems more geared toward the Germanic and English holiday traditions, anyway — you know, when the days get shorter and things turn dark and grim. Those of us with a sunnier outlook just hang on and wait until the Spring, and the real important holidays like St. Patrick's Day, St. Joseph's Day, and, uh (what was that one? Oh, yeah) Easter.
Of course, if there is something of Irish interest happening in your neck of the woods, please feel free to let the rest of us know. That's what we're here for.
Beannachtai!
Michael
DISCLAIMERS
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CONTENTS
Announcements
Organization, Publication and Membership Information
Letters
News and Reports
Articles
Food
Reviews
The Fourth Page
ANNOUNCEMENTS
As a newsletter, we rely on you to tell us what's going on. If you have an announcement for an upcoming event, please let us know. Just keep in mind that we try to publish on the 17th of every month, so get your announcements in at least a few days before that. Otherwise, consider sending it in as a report or a news item for the subsequent month.
• Official Nagging Announcement. We still have a number of subscribers who are probably wondering why they're not getting the newsletter. It's because they haven't verified their subscriptions by clicking on the link in the e-mail Google sent to their specified e-mail address. If you subscribed but have not received the newsletter (which means you're visiting the blog and are reading this there), it's an easy matter to correct. Enter your e-mail address again, and Google will send you another verification e-mail. Come on. This isn't rocket surgery. Or brain science.
• As always, feel free to forward this e-mail to your networks. If you haven't registered as a SIG member, please consider doing so.
• If you have any news items, announcements, letters, reports, or anything of Irish interest, please send them in. The alternative is to get a monologue each month consisting of my wit and wisdom — and you can see what that's like.
ORGANIZATION, PUBLICATION AND MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
What We Are
Litir Scéala an tSIG Gaelach is the newsletter of the Irish Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. More information about the SIG and this newsletter may be accessed by clicking on this link.
Resources
We are preparing to put together a list of resources and organizations that might be useful to our members. Due to the global scope of our readership, we are trying to limit the list to organizations that extend beyond a purely local constituency. This is a matter of simple logistics, due to the immense number of organizations out there. If you're looking for a local group to get involved with — and we encourage that — do an internet search. You may be both amazed and pleased at what you will find. We expect to list resources as we rebuild our membership, but right now notifications are coming in at less than a snail's pace.
Who We Are
As we hinted rather broadly above, we have no new members this month, either. We have a significant number of visitors and casual readers, but that's not going to get the SIG reactivated officially, however gratifying it may be personally.
Anyway, here's this month's membership report:
5 Members of Mensa
2 Other
1 Institutional Member
24 Newsletter Subscribers
32 Total Circulation (This does not include forwarded newsletters or visitors to the website who have not signed up for the newsletter — approximately 550 to date.)
LETTERS
Remember the letter we got last month about locating the Father Corby statue at Gettysburg? We found it. We remembered that last time the area had been undergoing some kind of renovation, so we think it must have been moved for a few days . . . just when we showed up.
NEWS AND REPORTS
Members of the Irish SIG don't usually belong only to the SIG, but to other groups with an Irish orientation as well. This is all to the good — the more society becomes more social, the better chance we have of influencing our institutions in a positive way and carrying out "acts of social justice" aimed at improving the common good for everybody. We want to encourage your community participation and then report on local events in which SIG members took part.
• The other newsletter we put out (this one on a weekly basis) has been getting increased readership.
• Book sales have picked up slightly as we near the holidays. Consider making bulk purchases of items in the CESJ bookstore.
• Due to various factors, such as hurricanes and busy schedules for rooms that were not assigned as requested, the Colonel John Fitzgerald Division AOH had no November meeting.
ARTICLES
Feature Article: Keynesian Contradictions
So. You won't send in any articles, huh? You asked for it. I wrote this up earlier this week and have just been dying for a chance to use it. Somebody asked me if John Maynard Keynes, the world's leading defunct economist, had ever said that a government should print money directly for consumption. The answer (as is the case with most economics questions) is "yes" and "no".
Keynes did not state explicitly that the government should print money directly for consumption. It is also true that he favored productive over non-productive expenditures by government . . . up to a point. In a past savings system such as Keynesian economics, however, creating money for government expenditures for any purpose, productive or non-productive, assumes as a given that the government has a right that we call "property" (vide Irving Fisher, The Purchasing Power of Money. New York: Macmillan, 1931, 4) to issue claims against existing wealth, i.e., is the ultimate owner of everything that exists in the economy. Keynesian economics ignores the fact that the government has no such right.
In the Keynesian system there is no real distinction between the private sector and the public sector (General Theory, VI.24.iii), any more than there is in the "chartalism" (a.k.a., "Modern Monetary Theory," or "MMT") of Georg Friedrich Knapp (The State Theory of Money. London: Macmillan and Company, 1924; cf. John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Money, Volume I, The Pure Theory of Money. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1930, 4). Thus, Keynes could be honestly confused about the difference between asset-backed private sector money consisting of bills of exchange and mortgages, and debt-backed public sector money consisting of bills of credit.
To be specific, asset-backed private sector money consists of bills of exchange backed by the present value of future marketable goods and services, and mortgages backed by the present value of existing marketable goods and services — anything that can be accepted in settlement of a debt. Consistent with the principles of the "Currency School" — and Keynes was Currency School, despite the widespread belief that he was "Banking School" (Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. New York: Basic Books, 1989, 60-65) — money consists solely of either specie (gold and silver) or government bills of credit backed by the present value of the government's ability to collect taxes in the future, or substitutes for currency in the form of demand deposits ("checking accounts").
Given the Keynesian understanding of money, and the failure to distinguish between the public and private sector, whether new capital is owned and controlled as private property or by the State becomes irrelevant. This is critical to understanding Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy, which can only be understood in light of the Keynesian assumptions about private property and money.
Inflation v. Employment
In Keynesian economics there is a presumed trade-off between unemployment and inflation. This assumption is at the heart of all Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy. As Keynes explained,
"For we have seen that, up to the point where full employment prevails, the growth of capital depends not at all on a low propensity to consume but is, on the contrary, held back by it; and only in conditions of full employment is a low propensity to consume conducive of the growth of capital." (General Theory, VI.24.i.)
Keep in mind that Keynes defined "saving" in all cases as reductions in consumption, i.e., "a low propensity to consume": "So far as I know, everyone is agreed that saving means the excess of income over expenditure on consumption." (General Theory, II.6.ii.) It is a principal tenet of all Currency School economics that it is impossible to finance new capital without first reducing consumption in order to accumulate money savings.
That being the case, and given the Keynesian paradox (what Moulton called "The Economic Dilemma" — Harold G. Moulton, The Formation of Capital. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1935, 26-29) that you can't finance new capital formation without cutting consumption, but you won't finance new capital if consumption is cut, the "solution" is to inflate the currency to induce "forced savings." (General Theory, II.7.iv.) "Forced savings" consists of money pumped into the economy to increase employment temporarily ("pump priming") (General Theory, III.10.vi). (N.B., "pump priming" is not the term in the General Theory; it was used to describe the New Deal deficit spending to increase consumption through make-work jobs, vide Harold G. Moulton, The New Philosophy of Public Debt. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1943, 14-15.)
The increase in jobs is supposed to increase effective demand (disposable income), which raises prices. The rise in prices means that consumers pay more for less, while producers receive more for less — "forced savings," meaning involuntary reductions in consumption presumed necessary to provide the savings to finance new capital. When producers use the increased profits resulting from the inflationary rise in prices (resulting in reductions in consumption) to invest in new capital formation, they create jobs and (presumably) pay wages to sustain the level of effective demand stimulated by the pump priming, i.e., printing money for consumption.
Production Becomes Irrelevant
Given the expedient nature of pump priming, Keynes claimed that it would be better if such government expenditures were productive, but this is not essential. Any expenditure will do the job. This is because the job creation that results from the initial pump priming operation is incidental to the increase in effective demand — increase in consumption.
The goal of pump priming is not the temporary job creation that results from the initial stimulus. Rather, the goal is the permanent job creation that presumably results from new capital formation motivated by the increase in consumption:
"Unless the psychological propensities of the public are different from what we are supposing, we have here established the law that increased employment for investment must necessarily stimulate the industries producing for consumption and thus lead to a total increase of employment which is a multiple of the primary employment required by the investment itself." (General Theory, III.10.ii.)
In other words, new capital investment will always increase employment. Always. There is no recognition of the fact that one of the primary incentives ("psychological propensities") for new capital investment is to decrease employment! As Jean-Baptiste Say explained, "Whenever a new machine, or a new and more expeditious process is substituted in the place of human labor previously in activity, part of the industrious human agents, whose service is thus ingeniously dispensed with, must needs be thrown out of employ." (Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy, I.vii.)
Keynes's assertion that employment increases as new capital is formed is another can of worms known as the "Labor Theory of Value." It presumes the only source of consumption income is private sector wages and public sector welfare. Be that as it may, however, in the Keynesian view, new capital formation (and thus the presumably automatic job creation that is the real goal) can only come about if there is a simultaneous increase in both demand by consumers and saving by producers.
A simultaneous increase in both demand and saving, however, can only take place in the past savings paradigm if you inflate the currency by printing money intended to redistribute wealth and raise prices. Keynes resolves the paradox of the economic dilemma by ignoring all the effective demand (consumption) and financing (saving) that results from private sector bills of exchange — future savings — and by assuming that the whole of the money supply consists solely of M2.
It is thus perfectly proper to say that Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy in situations of less than full employment is to print money directly for consumption. As long as the new money is spent on consumption, what the money is spent on is irrelevant. As Keynes asserted,
"When involuntary unemployment exists, the marginal disutility of labour is necessarily less than the utility of the marginal product. Indeed it may be much less. For a man who has been long unemployed some measure of labour, instead of involving disutility, may have a positive utility. If this is accepted, the above reasoning shows how 'wasteful' loan expenditure may nevertheless enrich the community on balance. Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better. . . .
"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing." (General Theory, III.10.vi.)
Setting aside for the sake of the argument Keynes's astounding claim that something can "become a good deal greater than it actually is" (in other words, both "be" and "not be"), it is clear from this passage (or as clear as Keynes could make anything so contradictory) that as long as money is created and spent, it is irrelevant what it is spent on — as long as it increases consumption.
Keynesians Counterargument
The paradox established by Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy cannot, of course, truly be resolved within the past savings paradigm. Nevertheless, most Keynesians will make the effort.
Some Keynesians might try to argue both ways. If you focus on the inflationary effect of Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy, they might claim, for example, that the money is being created to finance new capital formation and thus job creation, and that there is no real inflationary effect. Since job creation is the goal, what you claim is inflation isn't true inflation. This is because true inflation can only exist under conditions of full employment (General Theory, V.21.iv-v.) . . . just as consumption demand can only come from wages and welfare, and financing for new capital can only come from prior reductions in consumption. If you focus on the artificiality of temporary job creation, however, they then claim that the money is being created to obtain the increased consumption benefits of inflation.
The fact is that inflating the currency is presumably doing both at the same time. This is only possible when the private sector is strong and is going about its business by carrying out transactions and financing new capital without recourse to existing savings except as collateral for pure credit transactions, and disintermediating from the commercial banking system — a tendency that has been accelerating as government control of M2 has increased. (As I recall, a finance professor I had in the early 1970s claimed that disintermediation had really started in earnest in the mid-1960s, but he did not connect it with the adoption of Keynesian monetary and fiscal policies to finance the "Great Society." It's actually been going on from the dawn of civilization, but only became something "unusual" when the money supply began shifting to government debt backing instead of private sector asset backing during and after World War I.)
FOOD
Shepherd's Pie
We've done colcannon to death, so I thought we'd do shepherd's pie, the quintessential Irish pub dinner. This is pretty easy. The hardest part should be making the mashed potatoes to go on top:
Enough potatoes to make about a quart of mashed potatoes with milk and margarine (it browns better than butter).
About 1/2 to 1 cup of instant mashed potato flakes. (Now, don't get that way. This is not to make the top "crust," but to thicken the gravy.)
A pound of mixed frozen vegetables.
One onion
A pound of some kind of meat. Traditionally it's lamb or kid, but I use whatever I have on hand, including chicken or fresh bulk sausage.
A pint of chicken broth.
Make the mashed potatoes. Mince the onion and fry it in a little oil or other cooking fat. Brown the meat. Add the frozen vegetables. Cook them. Add the broth. Simmer until you're sure the meat is cooked through. Thicken with the mashed potato flakes. Put in an ovenproof pan. Top with the "real" mashed potatoes. At this point you can cool it, cover it with something and freeze it. Or put it in the oven at 425 F until the top browns a little bit at the tips, and then serve.
REVIEWS
In Defense of Human Dignity, Michael D. Greaney. Economic Justice Media, ISBN 978-0944997024, 320 pp., $20.00.
As one Amazon reviewer commented, "This well written and convincing work exposes a widespread misconception in the Catholic Church and elsewhere regarding Catholic Social Teaching on the economy, capitalism and Social Justice. Specifically that the widespread notion that the Church defends the current laissez-faire, unlimited wealth for the few, capitalist economy is wrong. The author brilliantly sets the record straight in the language of philosophy and political discourse. His answer to the current economic trouble is a restructuring of the growth of capital and property consistent with the papal social teachings since 1891 where he weaves the natural law principles of the Church on property, labor and our human nature with the Just Third Way mission of Kelso and Kurland."
THE FOURTH PAGE
The Geraldines of Ireland, V: Gerald the Rhymer and More Rebellion
AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS COUSIN (DESMOND I) IN January, 1356, Kildare IV was appointed Justiciar in his place, but he served only a few months before he was replaced by Thomas de Rokeby, who had served an earlier term as Lord Justice before being replaced by Desmond I. Lacking any familial support to advance the cause of the Geraldines (his cousin's heir was in his infancy, and the Desmond lands were in the hands of the king), the Earl of Kildare spent the remainder of the 14th century advancing the king's interests by attacking the native Irish and recalcitrant Norman Lords. He was appointed temporary Justiciar in 1376, being replaced a few months later by James Butler, the Earl of Ormond. After the coming of age of Desmond II's heir, this same Ormond became embroiled in a dispute with the third Earl of Desmond, Gerald FitzMaurice FitzGerald, and Kildare was appointed to mediate in 1387. After the death of Kildare IV in 1390, his presumably loyal service was continued by his heir, even to the point of the new earl being captured by O'Connor Faly in 1398, and presumably ransomed by the king or the council in Dublin soon after, as he continued as Earl until his death in 1432.
It was the third Earl of Desmond whom his subjects named, "Gerald the Rhymer." The Rhymer was the son of Desmond I by his second wife. (In an uncharacteristic error, Seumas MacManus makes Gerald the Rhymer the fourth earl, who was actually Gerald's first son, John FitzGerald FitzGerald, Desmond IV, in power from 1398 to 1400.) The third earl was also known as "the Poet," and his learning and accomplishments were so great that he was widely regarded as a magician. It is in this aspect that he has passed into folklore and his identity and presumed wizardly exploits have been confused with the career of the fourteenth Earl of Desmond, Gerald FitzGerald, "the Rebel Earl," the last of the great Norman-Irish lords, slain in 1583 while carrying on the fight against Elizabeth I. The spirit of Gerald the Rhymer is said to rise every seven years and revisit his Castle of Gur, near Limerick.
The third Earl was described as a nobleman of wonderful bounty and mirth, charitable in his deeds, easy of access, a composer of Irish poetry, and a learned and profound chronicler. He surpassed all the English and many of the Irish in knowledge of the Irish language, poetry and history, as well as other learning.
As noted above, Gerald was succeeded by his first son, John, as fourth earl. He, however, only reigned two years before passing on the title to his son, Thomas FitzJohn FitzGerald, the fifth earl, who reigned from 1400 to 1420, before being ousted (and, presumably, slain) by his uncle, James FitzGerald FitzGerald (Desmond VI), "James the Usurper," the second son of Gerald the Rhymer. As sixth earl, he reigned from 1420 until his death in 1462, whereupon the title passed to his son, Thomas "the Great" (Desmond VII, whom MacManus refers to as the eighth earl), who held it until his death in 1468. As Thomas FitzJohn, the fifth earl, died without issue, the title never returned to the proper succession, and was assumed by James, the first son of Thomas "The Great," and great-grandson of Gerald the Rhymer. James FitzThomas FitzGerald (Desmond VIII) reigned until 1487.
With the ascension of Lancastrian Henry IV in 1399, the factionalism soon to blight England with the Wars of the Roses spread to Ireland. The Geraldines initially declared for the new House of Lancaster, while their most important rival at this time, the Earl of Ormond, opposed the usurpation. The de Burgos also declared for Lancaster, but, by the end of the next century, the Geraldines, in common with most of the rest of the Norman-Irish, had switched to York, while the de Burgos maintained their allegiance to the House of Lancaster. This somewhat about face was the result of the relatively good government implemented by Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, during his tenure as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to which he had been appointed as a sort of quasi-exile through the influence of his enemies over Henry VI.
The Duke of Lancaster came to Ireland in August, 1406, and, as his first act of office, arrested the Earl of Kildare (Kildare V) for various irregularities during Kildare's term as Justiciar. Lancaster also made overtures of peace to the new Earl of Ormond, his father having died a short time before.
During the brief reign of Henry V (1413-1422), Kildare V apparently continued his disaffected status. In 1418 he was accused of "uttering threats against the Lord Deputy and council." By this time the new Earl of Ormond was the son-in-law of the Earl of Kildare, which put the FitzGerald in a rather bad light with the king, as it would tend to cause Kildare V to support Ormond in Ormond's growing enmity with Sir John Talbot of Hallamshire, Lord Furnivall, the king's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland.
The story circulated that Kildare V and Sir Christopher Preston (a descendent of a Lancashire merchant who was an adherent of Thomas of Lancaster in 1318, and pardoned by the king) planned to seize the Lord Deputy, kill all his soldiers, and appoint a Justiciar to suit themselves. The validity of these charges has been held to be somewhat doubtful, as both men were in their sixties-a very old age at the time-and probably past the age of fomenting revolution. However, Talbot had them both arrested and imprisoned in Trim Castle. Kildare V forfeited two manors, but things went harder with Preston, who, on the basis of documents of questionable authenticity found in his possession, lost all his lands. In the back-and-forth of English and Irish politics at this time, however, both regained everything by 1421. The great men of Norman Ireland, however, were fast becoming Yorkist in their sympathies.
Another FitzGerald enters the scene in 1440. In that year, the brothers of Thomas FitzGerald, Prior of Kilmainham, "and many other Irish enemies and English rebels and familiars of the prior" captured William Welles, the brother of the Lord Lieutenant, Leo, Lord Welles. The prior was involved in this activity, but was given a pardon. The others were probably punished with the usual rigor reserved for people without wealth or sufficiently powerful connections. However, the prior apparently later got into other trouble, for in 1444 one Thomas FitzMorice, "a notorious traitor" (probably a Geraldine relative), forcibly released from prison Thomas FitzGerald, "styling himself Prior of the Hospital." FitzGerald had been detained in prison on suspicion of felony and treason. At the same time, the Prior was charging the Earl of Ormond with treason before the council in England. Probably as a result of his opposition to Ormond and his connections with Ormond's enemy, Talbot, the Prior lost certain commissions and benefices as the result of the great council of 1447.
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