Food Stamp Program Participation But Not Food Insecurity Is Associated With Higher A: Fill & Download for Free

With respect to the other writers, the current answers to this question are opinion-heavy, light on actual analysis, and generally don’t answer the question. I’ll answer from an analyst’s point of view, relying on reviews from existing economic literature.Everyone knows about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) a.k.a the Food Stamp Program, so I’ll try to focus on that.There’s a few ways we can approach this, depending on how we define success:Does the program achieve its intended goal?Does SNAP alleviate hunger and food insecurity?If so, what is the quality of the subsequent diet?Does the program ultimately help people off of welfare?Do people on SNAP eventually achieve economic self-sufficiency?Is the program economically sound?Is money spent on SNAP wasted, or does it ultimately boost the economy?Does SNAP alleviate hunger and food insecurity? If so, what is the quality of the subsequent diet?Andreyeva, Tatiana, Amanda S. Tripp, and Marlene B. Schwartz. "Dietary quality of Americans by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation status: a systematic review." American journal of preventive medicine 49.4 (2015): 594-604.If SNAP fails at delivering food to those who need it, it’s probably not a success, to put it mildly. But as a follow-up, we might consider the quality of the food the recipients receive. While sweetened beverages and frozen pizzas are better than nothing, the purpose of the program is supplemental nutrition, not empty calories. In the 2015 review cited above, Dr. Andreyeva et. al. looked at twenty-five studies on the dietary quality of SNAP participants.These studies varied in their methodology, but this variation actually works to our benefit. If all these different studies report similar results, we can be pretty confident that those results are valid. In terms of analysis, most of the studies used instrumental variables estimation to compare SNAP participants to either eligible non-participants or higher-income non-participants.The studies consistently found that “SNAP participation was related to higher total food spending, higher spending on food for home consumption, and lower [Food Away From Home (FAFH)] spending as compared with low-income nonparticipants.” However, the dietary quality of SNAP participants did not appear to be very different from non-participants of a similar income range, and was significantly poorer when compared with higher-income non-participants.Do people on SNAP eventually achieve economic self-sufficiency?Kodras, Janet E. "Labor market and policy constraints on the work disincentive effect of welfare." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76.2 (1986): 228-246.Dagata, Elizabeth. Assessing the Self-sufficiency of Food Stamp Leavers. No. 1481-2017-4021. 2002.As any economist will attest, economic theory predicts that any welfare program will disincentivize work. “[The] logic is clear. Given a choice between labor at low wages and leisure with income provided by the state the economically rational action for one who is not sufficiently imbued with the work ethic will be to choose welfare.”That being said……this conclusion is warranted only in the realm of abstract economic theory, where the rational person is afforded free choice in the decision between work and welfare… The segment of the labor market available to the poor is often typified by high unemployment, seasonal jobs, discriminatory practices, and wage levels so low that even full-time employment does not allow one to rise above the poverty level… The labor-leisure concept, which assumes free choice in the decision between work and welfare, is entirely inappropriate, given barriers to employment opportunities, upward mobility, and adequate wages that exist for large segments of the low-income population.While I was not able to find much on the self-sufficiency of those on SNAP, I was able to find a 2002 report on those who were removed from the Food Stamp Program.In the mid-1990’s, welfare reform introduced federal work requirements for those on food stamps, especially for Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWD). In 2002, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services funded studies in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, and South Carolina that examined the well-being of ABAWDs who had left the Food Stamp Program as a result of those reforms. Using contact information from state records, researchers conducted a survey, asking about employment and income.The researchers found that while employment rates were significant, earnings and incomes were low and poverty rates were high. Those who were not employed were often in poor health, caring for others in poor health, or unable to find employment.Is money spent on SNAP wasted, or does it ultimately boost the economy?Hanson, Kenneth. The Food Assistance National Input-Output Multiplier (FANIOM) Model and Stimulus Effects of SNAP. ERR-103. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Econ. Res. Serv. October 2010.Canning, Patrick, and Brian Stacy. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Economy: New Estimates of the SNAP Multiplier. No. 1477-2019-2804. 2019.SNAP is primarily a federal aid program, but it can also be viewed as an ongoing economic stimulus. Because food stamps are spent quickly, this stimulus reacts rapidly during an economic downturn—right when it’s needed most. In fact, “[w]hen resources are underemployed, the increase in SNAP benefits starts a multiplier process in which inter-industry transactions and induced consumption effects lead to an economic impact that is greater than the initial stimulus.”In 2010, the USDA quantified this effect with FANIOM, an input-output model. This model is a mathematical representation of “the supply chain for all sectors of an economy.” Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, researchers can quantify the impact of SNAP benefits on production, GDP, and employment as multipliers, a ratio “[expressing] the change in one economic variable… as result of a change in a second economic variable.”In the figure above, we see that the GDP Type III multiplier (one that includes all downstream effects from a stimuli) is 1.79. Translated into plain English, every $5 of SNAP benefits generates $9 of economic activity.A more recent 2019 report from the USDA uses a similar model, FEDS-SAM. This models address the same question, but represent industries and the economy in a different way. They find a GDP multiplier of 1.5; every $5 of SNAP benefits generates $7.5 of economic activity.Hopefully, this answer serves as a look behind the scenes of policy analysis, revealing a few of the methods that researchers use to study policy. To answer your question, there are many ways to quantify the success of a welfare program. There likely isn’t any one best method, but looking at the results of several different analyses run by independent groups will give you the best look at the situation.

I think it’s a mistake.I understand why people find this proposal convincing. Subsidized government services will always provide some disincentive to work, and the debate between fiscal liberals and conservatives usually boils down to whether this disincentive and the associated costs are worth the benefits provided. Shifting towards work requirements for non-disabled or otherwise impaired residents seems like a logical way of mitigating the latter while ensuring the former.Yet such requirements, like any regulation, can impede program goals if poorly implemented. Welfare systems necessitate rigorous evaluation, but so do adjustments towards or away from system leniency. It is not enough to assume taking away food stamps will force more people to work. Like all policy changes, this proposal requires cost benefit analysis.So let’s get into the weeds.The “targets” of this proposal are able bodied adults without dependents(ABAWD) . Barring a waiver, they are required to work 20 hours a week to maintain welfare benefits, being limited to 3 out of 36 months of benefits without work.Since 1996, certain non-disabled SNAP participants ages 18–49 without dependent children are limited to 3 months of benefits out of 36 months if they do not work, participate in workfare, or take part in an employment and training program for at least 20 hours per week.These waivers allow ABAWD’s in designated locations who work less than 20 hours a week to maintain benefits past the 3 month time limit. Per state request, the Department of Agriculture can enact these waivers for state and sub state areas. To do so, the locality must meet one of the following requirements.Have a recent 12 month average unemployment rate above 10 percentHave a recent 3 month average unemployment rate above 10 percent.Have a historical seasonal unemployment rate above 10 percent.Be designated as a Labor Surplus Area by the Department of LaborQualify for extended benefits to unemployment insurance or EUC.Have a low and declining employment to population ratioHave a lack of jobs in declining occupations or industriesDescribed as lacking in employment opportunities by a academic studyHas a 24 month unemployment rate at least 20 percent above the national average during the start of the current fiscal year.To increase “self sufficiency” in line with SNAP’s intent, the USDA is planning to limit or remove many of these requirements. Below is the USDA’s summary of the proposed rule change, I’ve highlighted what I consider to be the most relevant portions.Federal law generally limits the amount of time an able-bodied adult without dependents (ABAWD) can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to 3 months in a 36-month period, unless the individual meets certain work requirements. On the request of a State SNAP agency, the law also gives the Department of Agriculture (the Department) the authority to temporarily waive the time limit in areas that have an unemployment rate of over 10 percent or a lack of sufficient jobs. The law also provides State agencies with a limited number of percentage exemptions that can be used by States to extend SNAP eligibility for ABAWDs subject to the time limit. The Department proposes to amend the regulatory standards by which the Department evaluates State SNAP agency requests to waive the time limit and to end the unlimited carryover of ABAWD percentage exemptions. The proposed rule would encourage broader application of the statutory ABAWD work requirement, consistent with the Administration's focus on fostering self-sufficiency. The Department useeks comments from the public on the proposed regulations.The amendments to regulatory standards include,The removal of LSA designationsThe addition of a “bottom floor” unemployment rate of 7 percent to areas with an unemployment rate 20 percent greater than the national average.( They are also considering 6 and 10 percent floors)Greater restrictions on alternate methods of determining employment scarcityA reduction in the availability of statewide waiversGreater limits to the ability of state agencies to combine data from substrate areas when applyingThe requirement of explicit Governor approval.These changes are described in more detail below, per Mathematica’s Kelly Cunningham’s Congressional testimony.Altogether, this proposal would make applying to be a waiver area far more difficult for states. The USDA estimates that this will lead to a 2.5% reduction in spending.This is a good time to discuss ABAWD’s in more depth. In 2013–14, only a third of ABAWD adults would meet the stated work requirements, the majority were labor force participants subject to a very volatile work conditions.Cunnyngham used 2017 SNAP administrative data to profile the ABAWD’s that would be newly subject to work requirements and the consequent risk of losing coverage. (A population the USDA estimates will be between 755,000 and 851,000 people in 2020)These ADAWD’s overwhelmingly live in poverty, averaged higher SNAP benefits, and are far more likely to live alone.97 percent lived in poverty, compared with 80 percent of other SNAP participants.88 percent had household income at or below 50 percent of the poverty level, compared with 39 percent of other SNAP participants.Among the one-third living in SNAP households with reported income, the average monthly household income was $557, or 43 percent of the poverty level.11 percent were working, although less than an average of 20 hours per week, and another 6 percent lived with someone else who was working.5 percent lived with a person with a disability.The average monthly SNAP benefit was $181 per person, compared with $120 for other SNAP participants.Furthermore, there is reason to be skeptical that these SNAP recipients are “able bodied”. As Hamilton Project director Jay C Shambaugh noted in his own Congressional testimony,In theory, work requirements are in place to motivate those who do not want to work to do so. But very few ABAWDs on SNAP, 1.4 percent, are“not interested in working.”……Of those who generally work but sometimes do not, the majority don’t work due to “work related reasons.” That is, they lost a job or couldn’t get enough hours.We also find that the title “Able-bodied” is a misnomer given that 80 percent of ABAWDs who were not in the labor force said it was due to health and disability; these are people who should be eligible for exemptions but could fail to receive them - Jay C ShambaughAltogether, the affected are poor, more dependent on SNAP than other recipients, likely subject to debilitating health conditions and severe employment volatility and mostly lacking the economic insurance provided by another earning household member. Even without considering other factors, I’d be hard pressed to justify increased punitive action towards such a vulnerable population.Of course, there might be something to be said for increasing work requirements if it resulted in employment gains. A working income is always preferable to dependence on federal benefits after all. Yet there is little to suggest that work requirements meaningfully increase employment among ABAWD’s, with those incentivized to work far fewer than those encouraged to drop out of the program.(The effect on employment doubles to a 1.4% increase when isolating ABAWD’s likely to be affected by the change in work requirements, with employment gains still falling very short of program withdrawls. Furthermore, similar analysis by Jeehon Han of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found the employment effect to be null. )Yet as damaging as these new requirements could be to this population, the true danger of this proposal lies in how it could affect America’s response to recessions.SNAP has historically been a very reactive benefit program, with participation increasing during periods of economic decline and decreasing during periods of growth.Granted, these shifts are not perfectly symmetrical as policy changes can augment or weaken the relationship between the two. Furthermore, low skilled workers, by design the primary recipients of SNAP, take longer to recover from Recessions.Therefore, we often see a lagged response between decreased unemployment and decreased SNAP expenditure, one economic analysts and policymakers factor in when determining program impact.The Great Recession saw frequent use of work exemptions, with SNAP “waiver areas” becoming an important component of federal and local responses.The EUC was authorized in June 2008 and explicitly tied to work waivers in January 2009, while the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act)provided national eligibility for waivers between February 17th 2009 and September 30th 2010. Moreover, they increased the speed with which counties were able to waive work requirements and the time they were able to retain this eligibility. An essential change given the previously mentioned lagged recovery among poor and low skilled Americans.If current USDA polices had been in place during the Great Recession, localities would have been far slower in responding to deteriorating work conditions whilst being forced to drop these waivers far earlier.The effects of SNAP throughout the recession was substantial. Lifting millions out of poverty,“The additional ARRA funds alleviated hardship. The ARRA increase kept a million people out of poverty in 2010, above and beyond the millions that SNAP’s regular funds kept out of poverty (Sherman 2011). As illustrated in figure 4, households with incomes below 130 percent of the federal poverty threshold saw their food insecurity rates decline by 2.0 percentage points relative to what was expected, while households with incomes generally out of reach of SNAP saw their food insecurity rates increase relative to expectations.” - Diane Whitmore Schanzenbachproviding an effective fiscal stimulus,and likely having a positive impact on countyand neighboring county employment. Particularly for non metro areas.Those are substantial positive effects for a program that represented less than 3% of the federal budget during this time.None of this is to say that incentivizing work shouldn’t be a policy priority or that welfare shouldn’t be designed with it in mind. Yet the evidence suggests that imposing these requirements would yield negligible employment gains and a very minor reduction in benefit spending. In return, we risk increasing poverty and hunger among a already vulnerable population, limiting the ability of states to enact benefit policies that suit their own populations and weakening one of the most effective counter cyclical economic tools we have.There are more effective ways of encouraging labor force participation, one’s that don’t come with such substantial social costs. SNAP proved to be a very useful tool throughout the Great Recession, we gain nothing from limiting it.Sourceshttp://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/SNAP_testimony_-_Shambaugh_FINAL.pdfWaivers Add Key State Flexibility to SNAP’s Three-Month Time LimitPeople with disabilities are disproportionately among the out-of-workWhat are automatic stabilizers and how do they work?http://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/twelve_facts_about_food_insecurity_and_snap.pdfhttp://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/HoynesSchanzenbach_web_20190506.pdfWorkers could lose SNAP benefits under Trump’s proposed ruleARRA: Strengthening Families and Communities Through SNAPAbout, Labor Surplus Area, Employment & Training Administration (ETA)https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/43667/32191_eib100.pdf?v=0How Do Work Requirement Waivers Help SNAP Respond to a Recession?Social Security Historyhttps://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/167036/1history.pdfHow Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Changed AmericaIn a land of dollars: Deep poverty and its consequencesHow Do Work Requirement Waivers Help SNAP Respond to a Recession?https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways_Winter2018_Employment-Poverty.pdfhttps://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/SNAP-Guide-to-Supporting-Requests-to-Waive-the-Time-Limit-for-ABAWDs.pdfThe Diversity of Welfare Leavershttp://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/SNAP_testimony_-_Shambaugh_FINAL.pdf

I apologize beforehand for any blunt mistakes of various forms due to the lack of editing on my part.Man who adorneth Modernism and revileth nigh all thereafter. Not necessarily my preferred era, nor the poet, yet both enjoy my unique adoration.This will be a slightly longer answer, in which I will gently touch the views of Ezra Pound, including philosophy, which can include a rather larger life-perspective in loose terms, therefore, I shall implicate literary views, religion and occultism, beliefs and biographical changes, as in radical shifts in his views during selected years. Due to the nature of these things, at times offensive and open to interpretation and partisan revision, I may offer my takes on it. Mind, I shall offer my reasons, and I cannot stress this enough, his views presented here are inherently blemished by my colour-prism, and as such I may tread too lightly on certain topics and be too harsh or faithful with others. Particular issues my veer me off-topics, either as a pointless divergence on my part, or more positively, to offer some background, more explanation, or alternative mindset. I shall also say I am not known for coherency, from one bud to the other. —-—— From Notes for CXVII ET SEQ, the capstone of my love for verse.EconomicsPoliticsReligion & Occultism & MysticismAmas ut facias pulchram.ECONOMICS“In the gap between Price values and Income is enough gunpowder to blow up every democratic parliament."— A. R. OrageMoney as Historical development and first appearances in his early troubadour poetry. Poetics → EconomicsSocial CreditPerishable currency & Miscellaneous"Octave" marks what is to my knowledge the first occurrence of the term "usury" in Pound's poetry; the manner in which it dramatizes poetic utterance as a medium of exchange is quite characteristic of much of Pound's early work in the troubadour mode. The Lady's precious attributes (symbolized by gold and silver) are exchanged for (or repaid by) the poet's song, which remits the interest or the "golden usuries" that "her beauty earns as but just increment"-just as the sustained metaphorical structure of the poem produces a series of tropic exchanges between the aesthetic, the erotic, and the economic. ( In Pound We Trust: The Economy of Poetry/ The Poetry of Economics, Sieburth )Most of what follows is drawn from Eugene Vance, Professor Emeritus, French, Comparative Literature, and Comparative Religion, and the relations between troubadour lyrics and early capitalism.Metaphorized exchange of amorous and erotic to economic, is, perhaps surprisingly, quite a common feature of courtly love. Many examples can be found in Pound´s early verse, where the poem can be viewed as, perchance as a contract, pledge, pact, or a covenant between the courtier and the Lady, in which the poem serves both as a medium of conveyance, a manifestation of the covenant, and a measure of value, where its aesthetic excellence denotes the factor of courting. If I use Vance´s term, there is a fundamental tension within, where the aristocratic liberality and love as purity, elevated above other emotions, battles earthy notion of a love poem serving as monetary transaction, and as such, not love, but profit becomes primary motif. As the poem becomes such an object, so does the poet. ( This notion of art for money and art in service of money is arguably one of the important notions that constitute Pound´s world-view and relations throughout his life. ) Thus the poem converts into "a fetishism of verbal signs whose economy depend[s] upon the poet's ability to sustain the body of the poem as a serious rival for the feminine object of desire whose absence the poem celebrates” - “ In other words, the object of the poet's desire is less the Lady than that which he can make of her, be it song, image, idea, or (in the etymological sense of facere) fetish.”I myself am no subscriber to Freud, and would pick Jung any day of the week, his influence, however, is remarkable;"All art begins in the physical discontent (or torture) of loneliness and partiality. It is to fill this lack that man first spun shapes out of the void. And with the intensity of this longing gradually came unto him power, power over the essences of the dawn, over the filaments of light and the warp of melody".To take into account later rabid rancor against putrid usury, the symbolism of early verse is especially important, as it plays in stark contrast. The element of compensation, gold, a universal signifier of homogeneity between mind and body, objects and subject and so forth, an alchemical idealization serving as a frictionless lubricant between states, without chance of degradation. ( Gold - more about esoterism, alchemy and occultism later. )Almost ironic, such inflation would Pound later voicefully denounce. The glamour without ende, rhetorical expansion resulting in impotence of words, both as singular or in phrases, which results, to later Pound, in reactionless sterility. Repetitive and excessive breading of words at the end renders them ineffective. Fetishistic creation ex nihilo - usury.As expected, later poetics are concentrated on the means of direct exchange between the subject and the object, starting with the imagisme.Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome."As to Twentieth-century poetry ... it will be harder and saner ... 'nearer the bone'. It will be as much like granite as it can be ... It will not try to seem forcible by rhetorical din, and luxurious riot. We will have fewer painted adjectives impeding the shock and stroke of it.... I want it austere, direct, free from emotional slither.”Certain parallels, like economics and poetic method, are of vital importance. Similar shift happens with implementation of occultism, which does not die off, but rather transforms. There is some profound interconnectivity that Pound sees in essentially all things essential.Here, the phrases like "take a chisel and cut away all the stone you don't want” and "surgeon's knife of Fascism” that is used to terminate all intermediate, i.e those unnecessary - Jews and gold.Same goes with Vorticism:"Emotion seizing upon some external scene or action carries it intact to the mind; and that vortex purges it of all save the essential or dominant or dramatic qualities, and it emerges like the external original.”By now some may ask why do I focus on poetics, not economics. They both, in the centre, inhabit the same idea;Jacques Derrida observes [in "White Mythology"] that usury, or usure, carries contrasting and simultaneous meanings. Usury is a using up, the erosion or effacement of the inscription on the face of the coin, the loss of the coin's value. Usury also means the supplementary product of a capital, the redemption of loss, surplus value of all sorts. The term usury thus denotes the unity and simultaneity of loss and profit. There is also a "systematic tie" between usury and the operations of language, a tie which manifests itself "whenever the theme of metaphor is privileged."Insufficient attention or erring portrayal, Pound renders economy of art to economy of market, although in certain points he loudly warns and seeks to accomplish complete dissociation between the two, he eventually merges them.By and large, Pound's early Cantos sustain this divorce between aesthetic and erotic communion on the one hand and monetary exchange on the other. And, significantly enough, it is gold, metonym of the transcendent fire of the sun, that most powerfully figures the pure ideality of divine or poetic vision in these initial Cantos-whether it be Circe in her "golden girdles," "bearing the golden bough of Argicida" (1:5), Danac awaiting "the golden rain" (4:16), or the work of the artist "weaving with points of gold" (5:17). As Jean-Michel Rabat (from whom I borrow these examples) points out, not until Canto 26, with the introduction of golden forks to the Doge's table ("bringing in, thus, the vice of luxuria") does gold begin to acquire unmistakably malevolent connotations. No longer an emblem of the luminous, ethereal fluidity of the nous ("gold, gold, a sheaf of hair"-4:14), gold increasingly takes on the inert weight of reified matter and is assimilated into the subterranean (or anal) phantasmagoria of the Hell Cantos.As they progress [ The Cantos ], the old & wise reflects and notices the deterioration, perceives the defect, and the decline in confidence and lost transparency emerges with the very thing it wishes to disavow - mediated exchange both in poetics and economics."It is an outrage that the owner of one commodity can not exchange it with someone possessing another, without being impeded or taxed by a third party holding a monopoly over some third substance or controlling some convention, regardless of what it be called.” ( Quoted in Stock, The Life of Ezra Pound, p. 322 )"History, as seen by a Monetary Economist, is a continuous struggle between producers and those who try to make a living by inserting a false system of book-keeping between the producers and their just recompense.”Before I turn to the Social Credit, an interesting section that may shed some light:Accordingly, one of Pound's favorite nostrums from 1934 on involved the "stamp scrip" currency proposed by the German monetarist Silvio Gesell. Gesell's Schwundgeld (literally "shrinking" or "disappearing" money) was a form of paper money to which a stamp (or tax) representing one percent of its face value would have to be affixed every month by the possessor of the bill. Pound calls stamp scrip "counter-usury" or money that bears "negative interest" because it is impossible to hoard it (or to make a profit off time): the currency loses value every month it lies idle or unspent, and after one hundred months becomes utterly worthless. Whether or not stamp scrip would actually accelerate the velocity of money in circulation or provide an efficient means of taxation remains open to question. (Pound, at any rate, claimed to have seen the scheme work in the small Austrian town of Worgl.) More interesting than its feasibility, however, is the very idea of money embodied by stamp scrip. The attraction of a self-liquidating or self-castrating currency (stamp scrip, Pound noted, was money that "eats up its own tail” - [ ouroboros - more about occultism later ] indicates the extent to which he desires to dematerialize or disembody the medium of exchange, to reduce it to an evanescent mark or trace, to insure that the code or scrip-ture of money will not take precedence over those messages (or goods) it is meant to convey.Money as such would be an economical manifestation of his poetics, and above all else natural, with perishability, velocity, cyclicity,… "The natural object is always the adequate symbol” - one of the tenets of imagism, money in such a from would serve as an adequate symbol - etymological “equal to” - to its object of representation.Another one of interesting takes is his differentiation of goods, where he also suggest different monetary means for different categories of goods;1. Transient: fresh vegetables luxuries jerry-built houses fake art, pseudo books battleships.2. Durable: well constructed buildings, roads, public works, canals, intelligent afforestation.3. Permanent: scientific discoveries works of art classicsDifferentiation would break up the monopoly of one currency ( gold at the time ) & "various degrees of durability ... could conceivably (but very cumbrously) be each represented by money that should melt at parallel rate". Also, one notes Pound strict adherence to what he perceives as a “natural dynamics”, where a system molds and adopts to greater efficiency, and does not maintain a strict set of axioms. The question is what aggregates to this Natura, which can be encountered notably in The Cantos. — All those who have read them surely remember the phrase Contra Naturam.M. Foucault:"The essential problem of Classical thought lay in the relations between name and order: how to discover a nomenclature that would be a taxonomy, or again, how to establish a system of signs that would be transparent to the continuity of being."Pertaining both to money and language - Pound´s interest in Chinese ideograms as ideal representations.Peirce's Theory of SignsIcons - things that stand for something because it resembles itIndices - sings that possess a real connection with the objectSymbols - depend neither on resemblance nor on contiguity, but on "mental association or habit," that is, on social convention.The latter emerges much later in Pound´s poetics, and takes the form of logopoeia, beside phanopoeia or melopoeia. This lack of multiplicity in early theories results in partial elimination of psyche, both individually and historically, and conveniently stations “Natura” , in effect overlooking historical and social conditions of creation and exchange. Similarly, same deficiency can be seen in monetary theories.Paradoxically, his enthusiasm for ideograms, not only possess natural connection to the object, but also materially manifest that for which they stand. Yet, if we transfer the same characteristic to monetary sphere, where an ideogram results in a reservoir, " a treasury of stable wisdom, an arsenal of live thought" ( Nicholls, Politics, Economics and Writing, p. 153. ) - meaning, an idolized form of concentrated clogging. The thing he is allergic too. This also is the nature of his criticism of Marx, through misreading: "Endowing money with properties of a quasi-religious nature," adding that "there was even the concept of energy being 'concentrated in money,' as if one were speaking of the divine quality of consecrated bread”.2. Social Credit“In the gap between Price values and Income is enough gunpowder to blow up every democratic parliament." — If I return to the original quotation, Social Credit, in its center, aims to eliminate precisely this ( Similar to Marx - surplus value ). Horrid simplification; “The state makes up the difference between the number of available goods and the amount of available money or credit by distributing a mixture of subsidies to industry and national dividends to citizens. The money or credit thus created by the state will in turn "bridge" the "gap," fill in the widening "gulf," and restore to circulation the purchasing power that was somehow "sucked up, or absorbed or caused to disappear" by the black magic of Usury or the legerdemain of accounting-the metaphors of castration that haunt Pound's economics have been explored at length by Casillo and Alan Durant.” —-Pound´s turn to Fascism is the ultimately the result “to narrow the gap”, as it renders impossible "to collect ... interest on money that represents nothing at all, money that is just FLIGHT of an airy fancy” and functions as "the representation of something solid and deliverable, since it is not merely a sign of abstract gold but rather a certificate of available goods or a credit slip signifying work done for the state”.A + B Theorem, from THE ECONOMIC ETHICS OF EZRA POUND, A. Lanteri:In all of its simplicity, the theorem states that every factory either makes payments to (A) individuals, in the form of wages, salaries, and dividends or (B) organizations, in the form of bank charges, raw materials, and other production costs. B payments are made at an early stage of the production process so that, by the time the final product reaches the market, these payment will have been spent and the only purchasing power available will be A. In order to cover all of its costs, however, a factory must sell its products at a price higher than A + B. Therefore, at any given time, there will be goods on the market for a value larger than A + B. As said, however, the outstanding purchasing power will be only A and so it will prove insufficient to clear out the all of the production. Douglas (1935) lists “at least five causes” for the deficiency of purchasing power:1) Money profits collected from the public (interest is profit on an intangible); 2) Savings; i.e., mere abstention from buying; 3) Investment of savings in new works, which create a new cost without fresh purchasing power; 4) Difference of circuit velocity between cost liquidation and price creation which results in charges being carried over into prices from a previous cost accountancy cycle. Practically all plant charges are of this nature, and all payments for material brought in from a previous wage cycle are of the same nature; 5) Deflation; i.e., sale of securities by banks and recall of loans.According to Douglas, the capitalistic productive process is discontinuous and it creates a shortage of resources to purchase all the goods. To avoid the collapse of the entire economy, some system has to be devised that makes A incomes sufficient to purchase all the commodities. Exports may work, but only as a temporary and local solution. Failing exports, more money need be invested in additional future production so that it can be paid out in the present as salaries and wages. In Douglas’ view, capitalism has an endemic deficiency of purchasing power, and so it has an inherent drive to economic growth (Hutchinson and Burkitt 1999). Such growth must be stimulated by bank credit.During a speech at the Oslo Merchants Club, he recounted how after the founding of the Bank of England (A.D. 1694) world debt had started growing. During the 17th century it increased by 47 percent, during the 18th century it increased by 466 percent, and by the end of the 19th century it had increased by 12,000 percent. According to Douglas (1935), this happened “in spite of the numerous repudiations of debt, the writing down of debts which takes place with every bankruptcy, and other methods used to write off debts and start again”. Moreover, this had happened not in spite of the economic growth of those centuries, but – quite surprisingly – because of it.The theory is today, of course, debunked, and the fallacy in clearly exposed. ( Breit and Elzinga 1980 ). However, his recognition of the importance of aggregate demand should not be discounted. J.M. Keynes, among others, acknowledged it; along with Gesell and Karl Marx – Douglas had understood “the outstanding problem of our economic system – that of Effective Demand”.Douglas, no matter how flawed the system he built may be, was driven by similar incentive as Pound; “to question the necessity for economic growth, while seeking reasons for the failure of industrial technology to deliver a comfortable lifestyle for all, free from long hours of labour and perpetual insecurity.”During the economic growth, if the money supply is not increased, the prices drop as the currency becomes more valuable, therefore the money supply should increase for the prices to remain stable. There is only the question who should regulate the money supply, as currently, privately owned banks create – and so also possess – the newly created money. It truly gets problematic when we speak of public debt, where the taxpayers have to cover the loans and interest to private entities, while the government could issue its own credit. Douglas argues for the transition of legal and moral rights to create money from private to public, to the community. Pound falls quite squarely with the same opposition, and with great recurrence quotes William Paterson, a co-founder of the Bank of England, to whom he attributed: “The bank [of England] has the benefit of interest on all moneys it has created out of nothing.” As such, net benefits of expansion and development belong to the community, not the banks or other private entities. And a portion of necessary created new money should be equally divided among the citizen, and the remains, to counter inflation, redeployed for a “debate” program, - “which amounts to a system of subsidies to the producers of goods and services – in order to keep prices low.““The effect will be a drop in the price level, while at the same time the producer and the business man will not be losing money. They will enjoy the dividends and the increase in trade which comes from the ability to charge lower prices. They will not lose money as they would if they had to lower prices without the aid of the creation of national credit.” (Douglas 1935)3. Perishable currencyUnification of Social credit and perishable currency based on Gesell’s proposal, that is, stamp scrip, - “it is a currency whose nominal value must be upheld by purchasing a stamp and attaching it to the bills. The stamps are due on fixed dates and in fixed amounts. This way, the holders of banknotes end up paying a tax on currency. In order to avoid paying the stamps, bills holders must spend (or deposit) their money – and in this way, they promote economic activity.” ( THE ECONOMIC ETHICS OF EZRA POUND, Lanteri )The main difference is, it has to be circulated and engaged, thus cannot be passively hoarded, as the money itself is subjected to periodical taxation. Keynes, beside some problems or unanswered questions, like that of of liquidity-preference and liquidity-premium, - “if currency notes were to be deprived of their liquidity-premium by the stamping system, a long series of substitutes would step into their shoes — bank-money, debts at call, foreign money, jewellery and the precious metals generally, and so forth.” With time, alternative means of payments would arise which would be needed to be suppressed.- Otherwise, sound.Another thing it boosts is the velocity of circulation; since the total amount of money available in an economy is lower than the value of the goods and services exchanged in a given period of time, money has to change hands several times. The speed at which this change takes place is the velocity of circulation of money. So, if everyone hangs on to money, velocity of circulation is lower, and this causes a decline in economic activity. During economic slowdowns, velocity drops dramatically, as the proportion of money that is kept in storage tends to increase.Ultimately, the notion of perishability has one great vulnerability, that it is perishable. It opposes the long standing tradition of Aristotle, and Locke, to name two giants.Not that Pound propagated the idea fiercely, he looked at it as a means of education or enlightenment, that would make “the banking fraud would stand exposed”. It is sound and convenient way to expose interests, and bury them.This short overview only further shed light to the problem that Pound was not an economist, but a humanist of which economy was interest due to the moral and cultural importance. However, he is one of the rare individuals who integrated two competing views, Social Credit and stamps, into one system.“Oh, blessed money which yieldeth sweete and profitable drinke for mankinde, and preserveth the possessors thereof free from the hellish pestilence of avarice because it cannot be long kept or hid underground” .( Pedro Martir Anghiera, On the New World, 1530 )Man´s devotion to art was nigh unparalleled;Yet fierce and unyielding;POLITICS - “Liberty is not a right, but a duty.”Firstly, I will let him speak a few important words you shan't forget;Here we meet the man at his lowest, radio broadcasts.The disgust reached a peak after the Great Depression, which was not a solely a fascist attitude, and the meltdown of both economical and political ideas followed in the 30s. The existing vitriol against Western economy, banking & bankers, financiers & usurers ( He almost equated with the Jews ) only augmented. It should also be mentioned that he lost two of his best friends during the war, for which he blamed the above mentioned, T. E. Hulme and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Being a sensitive man, albeit he might not seems so, it took a great toll on him and shifted his occupation, one of the reasons surely to never let such a thing happen. Well, I shall lose no words here… Sad what cameth of it!From Hugh Selwyn MauberleyIVThese fought in any case,and some believing pro domo, in any case...Some quick to arm,some for adventure,some from fear of weakness,some from fear of censure,some for love of slaughter, in imagination,learning later ...some in fear, learning love of slaughter;Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor” ...walked eye-deep in hellbelieving in old men's lies, then unbelievingcame home, home to a lie,home to many deceits,home to old lies and new infamy;usury age-old and age-thickand liars in public places.Daring as never before, wastage as never before.Young blood and high blood,fair cheeks, and fine bodies;fortitude as never beforefrankness as never before,disillusions as never told in the old days,hysterias, trench confessions,laughter out of dead bellies.VThere died a myriad,And of the best, among them,For an old bitch gone in the teeth,For a botched civilization.Charm, smiling at the good mouth,Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,For two gross of broken statues,For a few thousand battered books.Fascism, a brewage of quasi left-wing egalitarianism and right-wing authoritarianism certainly brought new dimensions to authority and community. G. Stein once said about Pound: “A village explainer. Excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not." The perimeter of his village was not bush-line or anything similar, but a zone where one idea ended and the other begun. He certainly was deluded and prejudiced, and he saw a fascism, as nazism, democratic authoritarianism, that is, leaders were the men of the people, will of the people, almost a divine embodiment of it. The idea was hardly new, the term volonté générale, ( Rousseau ), the general will, which was used a good hundred years before during the French Revolution, used akin seeds.Pound was in search for a political thought, like many other intellectuals, if I use the term, that would see the value of European cultural heritage and tradition in harmony with the slogan “Make it new”, be open to Oriental influx ( India, China, Japan - the latter two can encompass a whole chapter when it comes to influence and so forth ) and provide the aspirations of workers and peasants for economic justice and flourishment. God forfend, Fascism came the closest for him.1) a generalized unhappiness over the destruction of the social bonds that traditionally joined men and women together and joined both to the soil,2) a vigorous protest against the inability of the Western nations to end unemployment and make full use of their productive capabilities,3) a rejection of the Marxist theory that economic distress results from the attempt of capital to preserve its control over labor, and of the Marxist belief that only in a classless society will poverty and unemployment disappear,4) an attempt to find in the nation-state an alternative to the socialist concept of the working class, as a model of an organic community,5) support for the use of the full power of the state to stimulate economic development, to end unemployment, and to ensure that the basic needs of people for food, shelter, and clothing are satisfied,6) a cult of the Great Leader who incarnates the nation and whose indomitable will carries the nation forward toward its destiny,His total dismissal of arbitrary lines of ideology can be once again demonstrated:At the time, he still hoped to win over the left, and to implement the ideas of Social Credit. No matter how we turn, Fascism was at the time socially progressive, implementing various reforms, such as: ( To quote Pound )Yet even here the political naïveté got the better of him, thinking that Fascism turned from “productionism to distributivism”.Odon Por, and the two books, Guilds and Cooperatives in Italy and Fascism were another great influence. If I borrow two short sections before a commentary:The benefits of Corporate state and Unions, where each worker is represented by a man of his own profession & trade - experience, as such it cannot fall into the same gutter where a man is represented by professional politician. British Guild movement and syndicalism as two corollaries or akin with origin, yet there is one important difference with its implementation in Italy, — Mussolini was certainly influenced and had studied Georges Sorel and syndicalism — at the end, unions were voiceless and subordinate to the political party, which in practice rendered them ineffective, well, almost, they served as masquerade.By the end of 30s, he already modified and adopted Douglasian liberalism to Fascism:On a more general note henceforth:The extent to which you can even delegate power is probably limited by laws as definite as those which govern the strength of current you can send through an electric wire of given thickness and texture.Power, customs exist prior to the will of the people, and order is inherent, or rediscovered, rather than obtained. Pound rejected the notion of “contract theory” for various reasons. Society is a product of deliberate fabrication, and here a parallel to economics can be drawn, and a same suspicion with money created ex nihilo, or in political theory, contract and order ex nihilo. Natural state of society counters the artificial state of contract. Just government - peace, order, egalitarianism - take precedence over liberty ( Traditional conservative thought ). Active political participation is necessary and is a moral obligation, not for a struggle to power, as authority is not the exercise of some “arbitrary force”, but a tradition of political structure producing stability, without the need of exercising force.The structure wielding force is therefore indirect, the shift from early liberal to later fascist guild system is remarkable, but even there, guilds serve as a indirect - intermediary objects. Pound is here much closer to American Enlightenment ( They occur frequently in his writings, even radio broadcasts ), where the right to rule and structure is extracted by culture, not by power. That is, the knowledge of ruling is mediated in history, culture, law, customs,…Authoritarian state that rose, in Pound´s view, cannot develop from “self-generating system”, as such systems are based on transcendence of such pesky “self-sustained systems”. The right to rule thus cannot originate in a person and his charisma ( Weber´s theory ), but in which those closely and actively engage with historical and customary knowledge and language, the two mediators of continuity of tradition, which in turn generate a climate of naturalness and confidence - legitimize the rule.Tradition and custom opposed ideology, a body of new-born abstraction loosely assimilated or completely baseless to historical continuity. “Government has undergone revolution of modus and instrument. Ideologies float over this process. Emotions, appetites, are focussed into political process.” ( E. Pound ) If ideologies are baseless and factitious abstractions, what about the process and knowledge? If we transform two notions, that of technical and practical knowledge ( See Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism and politics, 1947 )( technical - learned by heart and applied mechanically with logic ; practical - can not be taught nor learned, only imparted or acquired ) through Poundian lenses and made less extreme, that through chaotic, that is, non-rationalistic method with false or twisted historical documentation might render the concreteness and naturality to that which has been ideological. In doing so, it has the power to liquefy the solid political order only to have it reappear as an ideology of concrete form with the mark of naturality. —- Any revolution or tumultuous period has gone though that ( English civil war, French Revolution, 20. century )Shift in politics and pretending of natural ethics only relieves one ideology for the other. From Canto XXXVI:Authority comes from right reason, never the other way on.( When I get around, I will make a series - close reading of the Cantos - because there is much treasure in those lines )Not only is the truth of a given idea measured by the degree and celerity wherewith it goes into action, but a very distinct component of truth remains ungrasped by the non-participant in the action.And this statement is at diametric remove from gross pragmatism that cheapens or accepts the “pragmatic pig of a world”.As much as this might seem ironic and false, now, years later, looking back, Pound spent his political activity battling what he thought of as Ideology. As opposed to tradition, beside epistemological difference, ideologies are immaterial ideas - representations, and as such unnatural. They induce unnatural behavior and rule. - Yet if we today evaluate, most would say Pound was the most ideological of them all, both in politics as in literature. His circular empiricism of material - natural and obvious transcendence - that is, with almost self-evident manifestation, ultimately rendered him blind to his own shortcomings.I do not know how much of Giovanni Gentile has Pound read, as he disliked formal and academic philosophy, but he was, at least superficially, acquainted with his ideas, and both shared intellectual contempt for “abstractions”.Fascism is not an ideology [ Pound would agree, or did agree ], it is not a closed system, and it is not really even a programme, if by programme one means a plan conceived in advance and projected into the future… Fascism is a spiritual attitude rather than a fixed content of thought [ dogma ]. ( Gentile )It is hard to understand the revolutionary fervor Pound experienced:“The lira was based on the word of the Duce. For me a much more secure basis than other people´s gold.”Word - graspable and real - language - opposed the ill-used abstractions of money.Mussolini´s words do not need footnotes, so clear are they in letter and spirit; they run straight and engrave themselves on the soul and heart of the reader as vivid human truths.Not Pound´s quote, but we can easily imagine it being said by him. This is the essence of Pound´s poetry as well, or at least how he has seen it, or what he wished to accomplish. The Cantos - the most complex of the poems - without notes…This was not even a pebble of Pound´s politics and the climate of the time.3. Religion & Occultism & Mysticism“The images of the gods move the soul to contemplation and preserve the tradition of the un­divided light.”Influenced by G.R.S. Mead, A.R. Orage, J. Theobalt, A. Upward, Olivia and Dorothy Shakespeare, and W. B. Yeats ( He lived with him, and was his secretary )( From Canto LXXXIII )As Kenner said about Pound; ” To see gods was a way to see nature, not to use an antique way of talking.”I believe in a sort of permanent basis in humanity, that is to say, I believe that Greek myth arose when someone having passed through delightful psychic experience tried to communicate it to others and found it necessary to screen himself from persecution. Speaking aesthetically, the myths are explications of mood: you may stop there, or you may probe deeper. Certain it is that these myths are only intelligible in a vivid and glittering sense to those people to whom they occur. I know, I mean, one man who understands Persephone and Demeter, and one who understands the Laurel, and another who has, I should say, met Artemis. These things are for them real. ( Pound, Psychology and Troubadours )Pound interest in occultism is nowhere near as researched and popular as his trodden politics. His attitude was rather ambivalent at best, and crossed out at the start some practices as wacky and useless:My stay in Stone Cottage will not be in the least profitable. I detest the country. Yeats will amuse me part of the time and bore me to death with psychical research the rest. I regard the visit as a duty to posterity.He disliked theurgy, psychical research and spiritualism, and Yeats at the time actively pursued practical magic and before mentioned theurgy. Pound was a by-stander, listener and learner, but was never proactively engaged with any of the groups. And interesting account of one of the members, W. T. Horton:I was & am very sorry for Ezra because beneath all his many wrappings I see the Real Man who sorrows deeply over the antics & perverse lucubrations of his distracted charge. Watching & listening to Ezra I could see, as it were, a something slimy crawling over everything that is beautiful & noble & of good report & leaving behind him an unquestionably glittering but at the same time foul track of slime. I am sorry for him because of what he must go through, for Love-in-Death is approaching who will open his eves & those of his Moon & other satellites.What is astonishing is that you do not see what Ezra is to you . . . .Ezra was your guest last Monday as were others so I did not think it right & proper to say anything but at same time I cannot allow my attitude to be mistaken. I gather from you that one cannot be a Poet & a Hero; in other words to be a Hero you must be a Zero. Well I prefer the Heroic Zero to the Olympian Poet on his sham Olympus . . . .What you or Ezra or anyone else believes or says matters not one tittle to me but I do know we are all in the hands of the Living God & sudden & quick & drastic will be the Event.I have a word for Mrs Shakespear. Sundrv of her accounts are being made up. the balance is being struck-she will soon know on which side it is to be.Ezra was not welcomed by some of the regulars of London occult circles, neither did he wished to be, as he saw most of them as charlatans and tricksters.But if one reads the Cantos, the esoteric tradition and influences are present. There is a fine line between hogwash and a real thing. Section of a letter, correspondence with Dorothy Shakespear:. . . What you mean by symbolism? Do you mean real symbolism, Cabala, genesis of symbols, rise of picture language, etc. or the aesthetic <symbology> symbolism of Villiers de 1'Isle Adam, and that Arthur Symons wrote a book [Svmbolist Movement in Literature] about--the literary movement? At any rate begin on the "Comte de Gabalis," anonymous and should be in catalogue under "Comte de Gabalis." Then you might try the Grimoire of Pope Honorius (IIIrd I think).There's a dictionary of symbols, but I think it immoral. I mean that I think a superficial acquaintance with the sort of shallow, conventional, or attributed meaning of a lot of symbols weakens--damnably, the power of receiving an energized symbol. I mean a symbol appearing in a vision has a certain richness and power of energizing joy--whereas if the supposed meaning of a symbol is familiar it has no more force, or interest of power of suggestion than any other word, or than a synonym in some other language.Then there are those Egyptian language books, but O.S. [Olivia Shakespear] has 'em so they're no use. De Gabalis (first part only) is amusing. Ennemoser's History Of Magic may have something in it--Then there are "Les Symbolistesl'-- french from MallarmC, de 1'Isle Adam, etc. to [Remy] De Gourmont, which is another story.It is quite obvious, however, that the occult was in service of his poetics, of immediacy, as opposed to Yeats aimless imaginative meanderings, which necessarily took away science - exactness - method - from arts, poetry,…Pound was genuinely religious, he thought of Divine Energy as a real thing, a constituent mode of reality. He recognized the importance of remembrance and continuity of divine tradition, the mixture of mystical and cultural. Across different cultures is an archetypal image, common to all human - divine encounters. He draws heavily from Greek, Roman, Chinese, Early Christian theology and Gnosticism.Gods float in the azure air,Bright gods and Tuscan, back before dew was shed.Light: and the first light, before ever dew was fallen.Panisks, and from the oak, dryas,And from the apple, madid,Through all the wood, and the leaves are full of voices,A-whisper, and the clouds bowe over the lake,And there are gods upon them, … ( Canto III, line 10→ )And From Canto LXXXI, line 520→He respected & adorned so many Gods from various traditions one can safely call him a Pagan, although not in etymological sense - pagus - village. In this sense he is very much in line with Maximus of Tyre;“If Greeks are stirred to the remembrance of God by the art of Phidias, or the Egyptians by paying worship to animals, or others by a river, or others by fire, I will not quarrel with their differences. Only let them know, let them love, let them remem­ber.”Images are the mediator of the divine experiences, and theirs contemplation. This can be seen as one of the reasons for his hostility towards dogmatic theological and philosophical abstractions, as they are baseless, of sorts - without image.“Tradition inheres . . . in the images of the gods, and gets lost in dogmatic definitions.”From there also sprouts his disagreements with major institutionalized religions, Christianity and the Church, as, beside dogmatism and adherence to scripture, seek monopoly and exclusive dominion over various other traditions. Thus it is no surprise Pound does not see history linearly and a stomp of progress, and beside empirical disagreement , there is the existence of the divine, and a society is measured by the attunement with it.( From Canto XIII )Confucius, another important figure.I should also note - Pound vehemently defied novelty for its own sake, and that it should arise from the past and tradition. Pound was, among the modernist, the most devoted student of the past. English Anglo-Saxon poetry - Made anew, French Troubadour poetry, Sestina form, modernized and imagized translation, Chinese poetry and translations, and so forth. There is much more to be said, Alas. —I am tired.From Canto LI:[ ( Pound´s Occult education ) ]More about Pound:Jan Špenko's answer to Can you write an answer, in prose or verse, that illuminates and analyzes the relationship of sound to sense? If you choose to write verse, it must perform what it teaches — as, e.g., Coleridge does in his “Metrical Feet” (see link).