Christmas List 2011 – A Money Machine

Today is December 1^st and so begins the 25 days of Christmas.  Last year, we looked at the 25 best songs of Christmas.  Maybe next year, we’ll study the 25 best movies, but as these are hard times, let’s take a look at the 25 best Christmas gifts.

The first thing on my 2011 Christmas List, Santa Claus, is a money machine.  I’d like to have a money machine just like Uncle Sam’s.  With it, I could print out money willy-nilly, without having to earn it, work for it, account for it, or save it.  Europe is in an economic hole and we want them to be our friends?  No problem!  Just roll out those dollar bills and dump them over Europe.  The more the merrier.

So what if Europeans spent carelessly?  So what if the United Kingdom was ruined by her unions?  They’re marching in the streets now demanding those pensions.  Never mind God saving the Queen or God saving the Union Jack.  God save the Unions.  Spread that money over the Yorkshire dales and the Midlands, London, and Wales.  Our dollar is a lot lighter than England’s pound, anyway.  Those things weigh a ton.  What a nuisance!

So what if the Greeks are as Greek as their ancestors?  What if they are as libertine, scandalous, and irresponsible as Marc Antony himself?  Their unions are rioting in the streets.  The Parthenon is already in pretty bad shape.  If we don’t bail them out, there’ll be nothing left for American tourists to see.

Think of all the good we could do right here in America.  Print out that money, go to the top of the Empire State Building and let it fly!  Think of all the happiness there’d be in the streets of New York City!  New York would forget all about the OWSers and the nightmare at Rock Center yesterday when Obama came to the City right at rush hour, when they were about to light the Christmas tree.  Throwing out all that money would be just like – well, Christmas.

Mothers could feed their children and put them in Nike sneakers!  Students could buy Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations!  My brother wouldn’t have to eat bologna sandwiches for lunch any more (he makes more money than I do).  We could fill up those Salvation Army kettles!  The food pantries would be stocked with yummy food.

All this just by printing money and spreading the wealth around.

But of course, there is a problem with printing all this money.  Merchants would demand more of the stuff for their products, because their union members would demand more of the stuff.  The wheelbarrow and rolling suitcase makers would be gazillionaires.  You’d need them to carry all that cash around.

And even though the money is free, that wouldn’t stop robbers from taking it away from you at gunpoint.  Pretty soon, you’d have riots in the streets with all those crazed shoppers trying to get more of the free money.  Since they couldn’t carry enough of the stuff to buy what they want, they’d simply start breaking shop windows and running down the guards at the doors.  Black Friday?  A day in church compared to the chaos of a free money world. 

The European unions were given everything they wanted until there was nothing left to give.  Now that the government is saying “that’s enough”, they’re marching in the streets in protest over having to pay their fair share.  Europe is having a hard time putting the free genie back in the bottle.

So the only answer is for Santa to give everyone their own money-making machine.  Think how busy everyone will be all day printing out their own money.  They’ll be so busy printing out enough of it to buy a loaf of bread that they won’t have any time for anything else, unless they want to bake their own bread.  But that would mean growing their own wheat, building their own mills, and wondering what to do with the excess wheat.

They’d have to trade something for it.  Bartering.  But what if the guy you want to buy milk from doesn’t want any bread?  That’s the beauty of money.  You can buy anything you want or need with it.  The trouble is, you have to work for it.  Or at least, you used to have to work for it.  Now if you can’t find work or don’t want to, you just pay some bureaucrat to print some money out for you.  He gives you $100, of which he keeps $25, and there you have your free money.

But if we could print out our own money, we wouldn’t have to pay a bureaucrat anything.  As long as we all print the same money, we’d be set for life.  Only – if everyone printed out their own money, no one would have any incentive to make anything like bread or TV sets or cars.  The government would have to step in and force people to make those things.  Wait.  Isn’t that slavery?

Isn’t slavery the opposite of freedom?  Hold the phone on that order, Santa.  I have some other things on my list that might be more useful than free money.  I’ll get back to you tomorrow