THE 2010-2015 GREEK LAWGIVERS' CRISIS, THE EURO AND CURRENCY AREAS. SHOULD THE EURO ZONE BREAK APART?

So today, editors at Forbes published yet another train-wreck of flawed thinking by Tim Worstall. In The Cause of the Eurozone Crisis Was the Euro: The Solution Is Abolition of the Euro, Worstall tries hard to call for an end to the Euro by blaming its existence for the cause of a what he calls the Eurozone Crisis, which likely he means the the Euro Banking Crisis of 2008 the Greek Lawgivers' Debt Crisis of 2010-2015.




Seriously, I don't understand why Worstall doesn't find another line of work besides trying to write about economies and economics (see more on Tim Worstall right here on Bizarro Theater),

"Even a cursory glance at the economics of this field, optimal currency areas (founded by Robert Mundell) tells us that over such disparate economies a single currency just isn’t going to work." ~ Tim Worstall

Worstall seems not to understand Mundell's Optimum Currency Area Theory at all. Mundell included his theory in a textbook titled International Economics, (1968, pp. 177-186).

Mundell's Optimum Currency Area Theory is one where an authority can stabilize employment and prices over a well-defined region. According to Mundell himself:

• "If the case for flexible exchange rates is a strong one, it is, in logic, a case for flexible exchange rates based on regional currencies, not on national currencies. The optimum currency area is the region."
• "If the world can be divided into regions within each of which there is factor mobility and between which there is factor immobility, then each of these regions should have a separate currency which fluctuates relative to all other currencies."
• "The argument works best if each nation (and currency) has internal factor mobility and external factor immobility."
• "But if regions cut across national boundaries or if countries are multiregional, then the argument for flexible exchange rates is only valid if currencies are reorganized on a regional basis."

In the work, Mundell cites two who he believes has captured the essence for defining the optimum currency area — Meade and Scitovsky.

• "In both cases [Meade's; Scitovsky's ] it is implied that an essential ingredient of a common currency, or a single currency area, is a high degree of factor mobility;"
• "...neither writer disputes that the optimum currency area is the region-defined in terms of internal factor mobility and external factor immobility-but there is an implicit difference in views on the precise degree of factor mobility required to delineate a region."

According to László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, in his speech titled Labour Mobility in the EU: Challenges and Perspectives for a Genuine European Labour Market, Europeans have the necessary ingredient of labor mobility.

Free movement of workers began in 1968. Today, it encompasses the labor markets of 28 Member States of the EU and every Eurozone country.

EU nationals have the right to look for work and take up employment in another Member State and to receive assistance from the employment services in the host country when looking for a job.

Countries experiencing the highest increase in labor outflows to other EU countries in 2011-12 were Greece, Spain, Ireland, Hungary and Latvia. Labor outflows went mostly to Germany, Austria and the UK.

So according to Mundell and his theory, the European Central Bank (ECB) ought to make more credit available in Germany, thus pushing up prices in Germany to remove the demand of Greeks from buying German products.  With Greek demand for German goods cut by being priced out, Greeks would then produce the alike, substitute goods on lower prices (lower wages), thus taking up unemployment slack in Greece.

But the problem has been the lawgivers in countries like Greece. As wages are prices, they have kept wages up through massive fake-work, make-work government programs, pensions and welfare. Greeks had been living through a credit bubble, a public sector credit bubble and not a private sector. When that bubble burst — Greek lawgivers couldn't borrow without bailouts — Greeks suffered at the hands of lawgivers rather than commercial bankers.

For those who doubt that Greek lawgivers haven't been the source of the problems for the Greeks, have a look at GREXIT IS NO EXIT. Nigerians export more than three times as much as the Greeks, but only import 1.34 times as much as the Greeks.

So how do the Greeks do it? How do the Greeks pay for those imports? Their lawgivers have borrowed year after year to pay for government agency workers, pensioners and welfare collectees who, in turn, take their Euro borrowings and buy imports from those of other Eurozone countries.

In the countries hit hardest by the Euro Banking Crisis, their problems have been caused by lawgivers borrowing to keep afloat phony economies and thus hampering price discovery. As well, by Mundell's theory, those countries within the Eurozone experiencing trade surpluses need to have their regional central bankers rediscount more and thus pump more credit into those countries, which presumably would jack up prices relative to the Eurozone trade deficit countries. By Mundell's theory, it doesn't matter if Germany and Greece are separate countries as long as the countries operate under the same exchange rate and have factor mobility.

Mundell also said, "Similarly, if factors are mobile across national boundaries, then a flexible exchange system becomes unnecessary, and may even be positively harmful, as I have suggested elsewhere." 

The Euro is a "gold" standard - one rate for an internal common market with factor mobility that requires lawgivers to adjust policy to that standard. The price of that Euro "gold" standard relative to the outside world (other banking systems' cash) fluctuates.

Mundell wrote at a time when countries had fixed exchange rates with bank cash convertible to gold while many called for floating exchange rates with irredeemable cash. Mundell proposed his theory as an attempt to explain international disequilibrium caused by balance-of-payments crises under fixed exchange rates and price fixing by legislators (rigid wage and price levels).

Mundell believed that countries with trade surpluses whose leaders capped bank credit caused unemployment for those living in trade deficit countries because leaders of trade deficit countries had to shrink their economies to restore the imbalance.

Whether one banking system shared among a few countries or countries each with their own banking systems, according to Mundell, the fix for regional disparities is for trade surplus countries to inflate (add bank credits) —

• "In a currency area comprising different countries with national currencies, the pace of employment in deficit countries is set by the willingness of surplus countries to inflate."
• "Unemployment could be avoided in the world economy if central banks agreed that the burden of international adjustment should fall on surplus countries, which would then inflate until unemployment in deficit countries is eliminated"
• "But in a currency area comprising many regions and a single currency, the pace of inflation is set by the willingness of central authorities to allow unemployment in deficit regions."

Under floating rates with irredeemable bank cash, those living in the trade deficit countries would need to pay more for foreign cash of trade surplus countries until BOP equalized. Thus, all inflation would be unneeded as is the fix for disparities between regions under the same banking system.

So, absent the will to inflate by region in the Euro zone, the Euro zone ought to break up and let floating exchange rates do their work — force prices up of foreign goods as expressed in one's own bank cash.

At the end Mundell concludes, "...the optimum currency area is the world, regardless of the number of regions of which it is composed." By that Mundell means there should be one money and balance of payments would adjust regional difference. In short, Mundell means something like gold as money would be the ideal for the world over.

Legally, Europeans have labor mobility. Culturally, whether they move or not is another matter (see: On the Move, The Economist).



Hordes of illegal aliens, many claiming to be refugees, don't seem to have a labor mobility hang up. For more on the horde invading Europe, check out 2015 EUROPEAN REFUGEE CRISIS. FLEEING THE FAILURES OF TOTALITARIANISM, BUT FAILING TO EMBRACE BETTER WAYS.

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CHRISTIANS FOUNDED AMERICA, NOT ATHEISTS, NOR JEWS, NOR HINDUS, NOR BUDDHISTS, NOR MUSLIMS.

So, today, likely anti-Christian bigoted Forbes.com writer, Rick Ungar attacked Americans who believe that Christians founded America. Worse, Ungar attacked everyone who believes Jesus as a divine being.

To unleash his attack, Ungar first attacked U.S. Senator Ted Cruz because Cruz announced his candidacy to get nominated as the 2016 Republican Party candidate for the Office of the Presidency of the United States while giving a speech at an evangelical Christian university. Ungar wrote,

"After all, how could it when the majority of our Founders were not Christians at all?"

Ungar seems to be suffering from a slew of false beliefs. Ungar falsely believes the second Constitution of the United States is "our founding document." And because Ungar believes such silliness, Ungar believes American couldn't be Christian since the second Constitution fails to include the words, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible or Creator, the founders of the country were not Christian.

The first attempt at constitution was defined with the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Clearly, since the second try at constitution, is not the first, the second try cannot be "our founding document."

More so, those of Constitutional Convention drafted a design for the union of States to establish permanent peace among Americans of the various states. To wit, the States delegated and relinquished their rights to lay taxes or duties on "articles exported from any State." As well, the designers agreed that "No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another."  They prohibited states from establishing alliances with other countries including entering "into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power or engage in war unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will admit of no delay".

With a rather schoolboy, childish understanding of American and U.S. history, Ungar blathers about "the founders" committing the lame fallacy of appeal to authority for his fallacious argument.

One-time senator as well as president, Warren Harding coined the phrase founding fathers. Harding himself specifically connected spirituality and the founding fathers when he said, "...in the divine inspiration of the founding fathers."

Though Harding gave no definition of who constituted the founding fathers, in a speech to dedicate the unveiling of a statue of Simon Bolivar, a leader in the South American movement for independence, Harding compares Bolivar to George Washington while mentioning Founding Fathers. Again, in a October 19, 1921, speech at Yorktown, Harding says, "unfailing courage which made Washington truly the Father of his country". Further in the speech, Harding mentions Washington in the same sentence as "the founding fathers."

Further, Ungar blathers about "the diests" claiming "majority of the nation’s Founders were Deists, not Christians." Interestingly, key architect of the second constitution, "founder" James Madison, accepted Christian tenets generally and formed his outlook on life within a Christian world view according to a 1990 biographer.

As to the history of America, without doubt, mostly English protestants founded America.  To deny this highly-documented reality either is to express profound deficiency of intellect or to engage in a nefarious attempt at deception.

No one founded any aspect of America for the cause of Buddha, Brahma, Mohammad or Moses and Jewry. No colonies that became states were founded by the worshipers of these. The Jews didn't land at Plymouth Rock nor did the Mohammadans. There weren't a bunch of atheists who set up shop at Jamestown.

Christian Protestant puritans founded Massachusetts Bay colony. Christian Protestants for tolerance led by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson founded the Rhode Island colony. Williams was known as a theologian and independent preacher. Puritans founded the Connecticut Colony, originally known as the River Colony.

William Penn, a Quaker, founded the Province of Pennsylvania specifically for Quakers. With his charter, Penn became the world's largest private landowner. 

Penn governed Pennsylvania from the Frame of Government of Pennsylvania,  which later provided key parts for the second constitution of the United States. With his Frame of Government, Penn sought to create a province of religious toleration and political freedom.

George Carteret and Lord Berkeley, the proprietors of the provinces of West Jersey and East Jersey, which would become New Jersey drafted the Concession and Agreement, a document granting religious freedom to all inhabitants of New Jersey. They did so to entice settlement. Eventually, Berkeley sold his share of New Jersey to the Quakers.

The Catholic province of Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore who sought to create a haven for English Catholics in Colonial America. The first settlement and capital city had the name St. Marys City.

Christians founded America. No one else did.

As well, almost all of the Christians who founded America were English Christians. And while the Swedes, who lost their colony to the Dutch in war, along with the Dutch might have come to Colonial America strictly for trade, neither lasted. Those left standing were the English protestants and English Catholics. 

Christianity were the driving force in the history of America.  The Christian Protestant movement known as the First Great Awakening happened between 1730s through 1740s in Colonial America. Those of the movement preached an anti-religious trappings message along with a personal relationship message. 

And after the Constitution became the law of the land and the first Congress assembled (1789), the Second Great Awakening began (1790). The rejection of deism by Christian Americans gave rise to the Second Great Awakening.

Contrary to false belief or nefarious deception, one would be hard pressed to find a founding document of America that fails to mention Christian affinity, God, divine providence and Jesus.

The first colonial grant made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 authorized Raleigh to enact statutes to govern a proposed colony provided that such statutes "be not against the true Christian faith now professed in the Church of England." 

The first charter of Virginia granted by King James I in 1606 had this, "We greatly commending and graciously accepting of their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work which may by the providence of Almighty God hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty in propagating the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."

The Mayflower compact made by the Pilgrims in 1620 states, "Having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and the honor of our king and country a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia." 

The Massachusetts Bay charter granted by Charles I in 1629 states, Whereby our said people inhabitants there may be so religiously peaceably and civilly governed as their good life and orderly conversation may win and incite the natives of the country to their knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith which in our royal intention and the adventurers free profession is the principal end of this plantation.

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1638-1639 state, "Forasmuch as it has pleased the Almighty God by the wise disposition of His divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we, the inhabitants and residents of Windsor,  Hartford and Wethersfield are now cohabitating and dwelling in and upon the River of Connecticut and the lands thereto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one public state or commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter enter into combination and confederation together to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the churches which according to the truth of the said gospel is now practiced amongst us."

The first settlers of Rhode Island agreed to this in 1638, "We whose names are underwritten do here solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of his given us in his holy word of truth to be guided and judged thereby."

The Rhode Island charter of 1663 stated, "pursuing, with peaceable and loyal minds,  their sober, serious and religious intentions, of godly edifying themselves and one another in the holy Christian faith and worship as they were persuaded; together with the gaining over and conversion of the poor, ignorant Indian natives, in these parts of America, to the sincere profession and obedience of the same faith and worship." 

The Carolina charter granted by Charles II in 1663 states, "being excited with a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith."

In 1778, the Constitution of South Carolina declared "the Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed and is hereby constituted and declared to be the established religion of this State."

Part I Article 3 of the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780 required "the legislature shall from time to time authorize and require the several towns parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic or religious societies to make suitable povision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily." 

Article 6 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of New Hampshire of 1784 required "the legislature to authorize from time to time the several towns, parishes, bodies corporate, or religious societies within this State, to make adequate provision at their own expense for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality."

The famous philosopher John Locke wrote Article 96 for the Constitution of the Carolinas of 1769. Article 96 stated,  "As the country comes to be sufficiently planted and distributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the parliament to take care for the building of churches, and the public maintenance of divines to be employed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of England, which being the only true and orthodox and the national religion of all the king's dominions is so also of Carolina, and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of parliament."


The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 stated, "That no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State."

Justices of The New York Supreme Court in Lindenmuller vs The People decreed,  "Christianity is not the legal religion of the State as established by law. If it were, it would be a civil or political institution, which it is not but this is not inconsistent with the idea that it is in fact, and ever has been the religion of the people. This fact is everywhere prominent in all our civil and political history, and has been from the first recognized and acted upon by the people as well as by constitutional conventions, by legislatures and by courts of justice." 

In Updegraph vs The Commonwealth, justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court  ruled, "Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; Christianity, without the spiritual artillery of European countries; for this Christianity was one of the considerations of the royal charter, and the very basis of its great founder William Penn; not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, and tithes and spiritual courts; but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."

It is no wonder then, the U.S. Supreme Court justices declared the United States of America consisting of a Christian nation. In the case of Holy Trinity Church vs United States 143 US 471, the justices decreed "these and many other matters which might be noticed add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."
If you are wondering about me, like Jesus, I am irreligious. And like Jesus, I know the saving force of the law of love.

Disclosure: I am neither a member of the Republican Party nor a donor to it.

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STAKEHOLDERS OVER EFFICIENCY AND PROFITS? FAMOUS CEOs SEEM QUITE CONFUSED ABOUT THEIR JOBS.

So today, Forbes editors published a work by a guy named Steve Denning titled Salesforce CEO Slams 'The World's Dumbest Idea': Maximizing Shareholder Value. In the work, Denning commits the fallacy of appeal to authority many times first by quoting popular CEOs who have expressed their silly beliefs in public and then by citing an impractical, academician theorist.

The CEOs quoted who include Jack Welsh (ex-GE), Jack Ma (Alibaba), John Mackey (Whole Foods), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and others who reveal themselves to be quite wrong precisely because they don't know what the word value means. Value is a ratio that expresses a rate of exchange.

When one of those things is cash or credit denominated in cash, all should know that ratio by another name. All should know it as price.

When Denning writes, "led firms to pursue the extraction of value, rather than the creation of value" it seems clear that Denning himself is confused about what what value means. In short, no one nor any firm can extract exchange. Exchange arises because each of two parties believes he is getting the better end of the deal.

Likewise, no individual by himself nor any firm by itself can create value. Value requires two parties as all trade does. Value arises from exchange.

The purpose of a firm is to survive to perpetuate trade. Firms survive by at least breaking even.

The entirety of trade, also known as commerce or buying and selling, ties up with two words — property and profit. Without profit from effort, anyone would lack buying power to buy anything else. Without property, no one can trade.

At less than break even, anyone would stop trying to produce property. No one works at a loss.

Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created can trade arise between two persons.

The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth.

Profit is the name of sales at prices set by winning bidders less the outlay spent to acquire property for those sales. Profit signals potential return to increasing capitalization to gain efficiency and thus higher profit, lest competitors come to the party with better capitalization.

So in the end, CEOs must be stewards of their firms' capital, which is property put to making stuff, so they can consistently produce wealth, which is property at the moment of actual purchase and sale, to perpetuate trade in pursuit of profit.

Should profit arise, firms then can return shares of that profit to shareholders in the form of dividends, which is the only reason why investors hold stocks — for the income. Stocks represent ownership in the capital structure of any firm.

Speculators buy or sell stock either going long or short because speculators play on price movements of stocks. Far too many conflate speculators with investors.

All proper, positive action by individuals or representatives of individuals, such as corporations, is enlightened self-interest. Only by acting for oneself in recognition of doing right by others can anyone thrive in the long-run.

For-profit corporations don't exist for philanthropy or do-gooder meddling or any other sentimental foolery expressed by some CEOs. The clue to anyone who needs it is right there — for-profit.

As well, corporations don't exist for the false concept of "stakeholders". Corporations don't exist for employees nor citizens and especially not legislators and their agencies of government.

Corporations exist for producing property to trade in pursuit of profit on behalf of shareholders. Corporations exist to work for the same reason every individual works — producing property, which is work sold to an employer or customer in pursuit of profit, which is income less outlays.

I invite those seeking a better understanding of trade and business to start here WHY IS THE ECONOMY SO HORRIBLE? BECAUSE ACADEMIA ECONOMICS IS FAKE right here on Bizarro Theater.

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GUINNESS AD GETS DRUNK ON PATRIOTISM

So today on Forbes, Will Burns, CEO of a "virtual marketing ideas company pioneering the Expert Sourcing model" (whatever that is) shared his thoughts on a the Guinness "Empty Chair" ad.

The rather bad, sappy ad shows a barmaid pouring Guinness beer into a glass, night after night, setting those beers on a table at which no one sits. At long last, a battledress wearing soldier walks into the bar, the barmaid nods to him and he picks up the glass. Then a few other drinkers hoist their also-filled with Guinness bar glasses in salute to the soldier. The ad ends with a voiceover:

"The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character."

Will seems to believe such an ad makes Guinness "the icon of great branding." Will views this 1:30 spot as mini-movie because of the editing techniques which give a sense of time passage.

Fair enough. Almost all ads are in short-story format, happening in one place, at one time, with one protagonist. Few ads try to suggest the passage of time spanning days or weeks.

Will believes all viewers get hooked straight away on this ad because the barmaid places beers on a table seemingly for no one. Will sees the barmaid as the hero who never gives up hope on the returning soldier.

And then Will jumps to wild conclusion. First Will claims, "The beer itself was a glass full of hope," and then Will doubles down with,

"... that glass of Guinness is made of much more. It is a symbol of the bartender’s hope. It’s the very manifestation of the choice she made. It’s a liquid representative of her character."

Anyone who believes that Guinness ad is good advertising simply doesn't understand advertising and beliefs manipulation that leads to action. The ad agency and the execs of Guinness simply do not understand advertising at all.

The ad relies upon indirect suggestion to support a well-known technique known as testimonial: "An unknown bartender serves Guinness". That is one step worse than an ad featuring a celebrity doing the same, "Kim Kardashian drinks Guinness." Implied in both is suggestion that because one does it, you should too.

Against what Will believes, watchers don’t give a flip about the barmaid and her character. No one watching the ad says to himself, Wow. I want to be like the barmaid. I want a job like a barmaid. I want to serve Guinness. So I should go out and buy Guinness so I can be like the barmaid.

If anything, anyone watching the ad might think, Wow. I need a friend like the barmaid. What am I doing with the friends I have? I should go find new friends. But how? 

"The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character" slogan could be the slogan against drinking or against drugging. It is not befitting for any alcohol product.

Everyone knows that anyone drinks alcohol for its mind altering effects. There isn't anything character building about altering one's mind.

As well, any beer could have been placed on that table and nothing would change for that ad, even a generic, no brand beer. There isn't anything to connect the brand with the act of putting out a beer upon an empty table night after night.

Where does the ad show the reward to the watchers? What do watchers get for switching brands and buying Guinness or for taking up drinking beer?

The Guinness ad does nothing to suggest a future for the individual watching it. The ad fails to show watchers they will gain any of the key drivers of behavior by buying Guinness — praise, sex, love, respect, power — or suffer personal disadvantage through lack while others are getting and thus getting ahead.

The barmaid fails to get rewarded by her peers for being loyal to the soldier. If the Guinness ad were structured right, it is the barmaid and not the soldier who should have received glasses-raised toasts from the other drinkers.

If anything, the ad suggests that if you join the military and return home, your reward shall be one glass of Guinness that your local haunt barmaid buys for you. Your pub peers will not even bother to throw you a homecoming party.

The ad is a rather clumsy application of an appeal to patriotism. In effect, having the patrons raise their glasses to the soldier is a visual salute by the execs of Guinness to soldiers. The act implies having said We salute you for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The timing of such an ad could not be worse. Anti-war sentiment is near a high in America. People have grown war-weary over Afghanistan and Iraq.

Though some might get touched by the sappy sentimentality, that ad isn't going to sell anyone. The ad violates core understanding of how true advertising works. The ad fails thoroughly at selling Guinness but might sell many on friendship seeking services, might get some into Alcoholics Anonymous or might get some to join the military.

A great ad does this and this alone: It puts the one seeing the ad into a wanted future and in so doing, triggers that one to act now in effort to get that future.

People seek status among their peers by wowing them with their purchases and in so doing demonstrating their superiority. Nothing in that ad says any of these:

• Gain status tomorrow by buying Guinness right now. 
• Get sex tonight from your partner by buying Guinness right now. 
• Catch up with everyone by buying Guinness right now otherwise you are going to be cast away as an outsider.

A better ad would have featured a homecoming party for the soldier with a loser, who, when it his turn to buy the soldier a beer, orders a cheap beer, but with everyone else shouting at him, saying in unison, "What are you doing? Buy him a Guinness!"

And entire campaign could be built on the slogan, What are you doing? Buy him a Guinness! It is easy to see future scenarios of persons about to make the mistake of buying another beer only to be rescued at last second with someone's suggestion to buy a Guinness. I bought him a Guinness would make for a fine extension of the theme.

Businessmen spend on advertising to increase sales because it takes too long to wait for word of mouth to take hold. Advertisers don’t exist for advertising agencies. Ad spending does not exist for ad agencies.

The secret to all good ads is this: any ad must reflect what the plain man or woman believes rather than what the advertising agency execs believe. Yet, all kinds of ad creatives believe good advertising is what they desire to make.

For many years running, businessmen as advertisers have been swindled by agency execs into making one-off ads, ads often filled with mixed messages that neither inspire watchers to act nor establish mnemonic for would-be shoppers.

Contemporary television advertising idles in such a sorry state. Every ad is either a Clydesdale tear-jerker, like the lame Guinness ad or a build-up to a corny, sappy one-liner bad joke.

Here is the ad in all of its glorious fail.

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ARE THE NBA BUCKS WORTH $550 MILLION BUCKS? TRY $290.6 MILLION.

In life, everything is worth $0 until someone opens up a checkbook or wheels over a barrow of cash.

So today over at Forbes, Mike Ozanian, Executive Editor, ponders over the estimated worth of the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA professional basketball franchise. Ozanian frets over whether the franchise is worth $450 million or $550 million.

Back in March 2014, Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens paid $550 million to buy the Bucks franchise from previous owner, Herb Kohl. From Herb Kohl's perspective, that Kohl accepted $550 million, the Bucks were worth $550 million to Kohl. It's not hard. 

Foolishly, Lasry and Edens overpaid for the Bucks even though the Bucks are worth $550 million to Lasry and Edens. What should have Lasry and Edens paid to get the Bucks franchise? 

Well, what is the revenue stream of the Bucks? How does that revenue stream compare to other investments?

The current TV-broadcast contract between the NBA and all TV broadcasters pays the NBA $930 million a year. The Bucks franchise portion is $31 million a year. 

The 2014 attendance tallied to 552,967. The average ticket price for a game to watch the Bucks came in at $47.7. So, revenue for broadcast rights and ticket sales tallied to $57.4 million. 

Now, if we guess and say the franchise earned another $14.72 million from sponsorship and advertising, suite sales, seat premiums, concessions, merchandise, and parking, total revenue tallies to $72.1 million. That guess comes from a premium over actual numbers of another small market NBA franchise.

The average price-to-earnings for the S&P 500 is $31. The estimated percent profit (after-tax income) on 12-month gross revenues 13%. EPS is a good stand-in for market cap to 12-month after-tax profit.

Using that as a benchmark for opportunity cost, no shrewd businessman should have paid more than $290.6 million for the Milwaukee Bucks. Said another way, if you could buy every firm of the S&P 500, to get the same profit from the Milwaukee Bucks, if you paid one dollar more than $290.6 million, your return would be less compared to profit earned from owning every firm of the S&P 500.

Let's look at firms associated with the NBA: Disney, Time Warner Cable, Coca-Cola, Nike. To get the same return as buying Coca-Cola outright, if you could, no one should have paid more than $236.4 million for the Milwaukee Bucks. To get the same return as buying the wonderful world of Disney outright, no one should have paid more than $232.3 million to own the Bucks. 



Compared to Nike, no one should have paid more than $181.2 million for the Bucks. Compared to Time Warner Cable, no one should have paid more than $133.6 million. 

At a reported sale price of $550 million for the Bucks, for every $1 someone should have paid for the Bucks, Lasry and Edens overpaid by $1.89.

Recently, former Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer agreed to buy the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion. Balmer has agreed to overpay by $1.519 billion based on estimated revenue of $119.5 million. Compared to the return from owning all firms of the S&P 500, Balmer should not have paid more than $481.4 million for the Clippers. 

Mega-millionaires and billionaires overpay for pro sports franchises for one reason alone — vanity.

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ALMOST 17 MILLION AMERICANS STILL NOT WORKING FOR A LIVING!

Many Americans wish they could bitch about dead end jobs they don't have right now.

So today, I read in Forbes yet another egg head economist, Bill Conerly, raving about how "total employment ... now exceeds the pre-recession level."

By "pre-recession" I assume the guy means before the Banking Crisis of 2008 or at True Peak GDP, which came at the end of Q4 2007.

Let's have a look at reality instead of Conerly's Ph.D.-in-economics fantasy.




Employment incidence of workers to working age population shows that Americans have fallen back to 1987 Reagan era employment levels.

Mind you, Employment Incidence accounts for approximately 80%  of the workers who contribute to GDP. Employment incidence reveals the ratio of jobs added or lost to total population growth of all who can work legally from an age standpoint. 

Employment incidence has fallen an eye-popping -6.1% since Peak True GDP, hit in Q4 2007. The annualized decline from the peak has run at slightly -1% a year ( -0.95%). 

From when Nixon slammed shut the gold window in August 1971, peak employment incidence hit at the end of November 1999, during the end of the Clinton Good Times. Since hitting the peak, employment incidence has fallen a jaw-dropping -10.8%, falling at a rate a bit more than three-forth's of  -1% a year (-0.79%).

If we were to assume that as many Americans who were working at the peak of the Clinton Good Times would like to work today, then there are almost 17 million Americans who want to work but who are out of work right now! There are two full New York Cities worth of American workers sitting idle! 

Here is how our projected unemployed Americans who would like to work compare to the top 15 cities of the USA by head count. 





Eleven Philadelphias sit idle every day! So too, twenty San Francicsos idle every day!

17 million Americans kicking about wanting to work is one-fifth of all Germans, one-quarter of all Brits, one-third of all Koreans, almost half of all Canadians, not quite three-fourths of all Australians and all Dutchmen. That's right, 17 million willing to work Americans constitute the entire population of the Netherlands!

With fewer workers and True Wages falling, is it any wonder that True GDP has fallen a walloping -42.8%,  falling at an annual rate of -8.9%!  



Relative to a growing population, is it any wonder why ever fewer Americans are buying cars? 

To read this chart, the lows are the better numbers. The Drive ratios compare how many Americans there are for each new car and light truck sold.



Should it surprise you that entrepreneurs running firms like Uber seek to capitalize on ever poorer Americans by creating the renting economy rather than the owning one?

So who can you thank for wrecking the economy? You can thank successive U.S. Congresses during the Bush-Obama Bad Times for crossing the Rubicon pushing True Debt to True GDP to 100% to fund unneeded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can thank Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke for inflation of the biggest credit bubble in mankind's history.  

Note: The data excludes proprietors, private household employees, unpaid volunteers, farm employees, and the unincorporated self-employed. 

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ELITES SEEK TO PUNISH WORKERS WITH A CONSUMPTION TAX, OR A TAX ON WORKERS' WEALTH

Tim Worstall is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, which exists as a think tank to promote libertarian and free market ideas. Worstall also writes for Forbes.

Today, Forbes published a work of Worstall's in which Worstall rather stupidly claims a consumption tax is not a tax on wealth. Worstall wrote, "This is rather the point of it in fact: it (consumption tax) entirely exempts wealth from taxation." 

Worstall does not know the first thing about wealth. Wealth is the name given to property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit. 

A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods, whether chattel or services. Said another way, a consumption tax is a tax on wealth. That is all it ever can be.


The word consumption enters into economics from the Physiocrats. Most economic historians consider the Physiocrats as the first modern economists. The Physiocrats were Frenchmen (Quesney, Turgot, Le Trosne, others) who sought to justify taxation on merchants and financiers while justifying no taxation on farmers. 

In their explanation of a trade, which they called exchange, the word the Physiocrats wrote was consommation, which Englishmen translated as consumption. By consumption, the Physiocrats meant the purchase of something after first gaining the means by selling something else.

Le Trosne said, 

"There is this difference between an Exchange and a Sale, that, in an Exchange, everything is consummated, or completed (consommé) for each party. They possess the thing which they desired to procure, and they have only to enjoy it.

"In the Sale on the contrary, it is only the purchaser who has attained his object, because it is only he who is in position to enjoy. But everything is not ended for the seller.

"Exchange arrives directly at its object, which is consommation (consumption, completion). It has only two terms, and is ended in one contract. But a contract in which money intervenes is not consommé (completed, consumption), but it is necessary for the seller should become a buyer, either himself or by the interposition of the person to whom he transfers the money.

"There are, therefore, in order to arrive at consommation (completion, consumption) which is the ultimate object, at least four terms and three contractants, of whom one intervenes twice."

To the Physiocrats, the trading away of wealth in the form of cash or credit for wealth as products after the cost of production, which they called the produit net, is what they meant by consumption. Thus, the Physiocrats knew at least two kinds of wealth — products of the earth and money. 

Wealth is anything that can be bought or sold. Socrates said so in his dialogue known as the Eryxias. The Romans said so. English jurists of courts since the 1700s have said so. So too have American jurists.

Worstall conflates both capital with wealth as well as production and trade. 

Capital is property put to making stuff.  The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth. 

Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created, can trade arise between two persons.

Production is the use of capital to create property in potential wealth, which all know as stock or inventory when in chattel form, or to create property in actual wealth, which all know as work, in services form. 

Trade is the purchase and sale of property as wealth.

Labor is the poor man's capital. Work sold for wages is wealth. Wages acquired in a purchase and sale of work for wages is wealth. 

So too, is the same for the firm. Machinery and labor are the capital of the firm. Product sold for income is wealth. Income acquired in a purchase and sale of product for income is wealth.

Inventory (stock) is property that has potential wealth and derives from capital. Inventory never sold, though still property, is loss. Inventory does not become wealth until traded. 

Production uses capital. Trade requires wealth.

Until trade happens, nothing is wealth. Though someone has property in a beat-up, used bicycle that goes unsold while on offer at a lawn sale, because the bicycle remains unsold, the used bicycle never becomes wealth. 

However, when bought new in a purchase and sale, the bicycle became wealth of the seller and the cash or credit used to buy the bicycle became wealth of the buyer.

If someone has property in say a house, a banker might consider such property an asset — property that has potential to gain a street price in a purchase and sale. And as such, a banker might consider the asset as collateral, which is property pledged against debt owed on credit borrowed. 

Worstall then goes on to further embarrassment when he writes, "What a progressive consumption tax does do is tax the returns to capital that are then consumed." Brushing aside his horrible grammatical expression, "does do," Worstall reveals that he does not understand commerce and business.

When a capitalist invests, a capitalist uses his wealth to buy a right of action to a share of profit, if any, earned by a firm run by an entrepreneur.  The return to capital is profit. And all profit is income.

Credit capitalists use cash and credit as capital to produce income earned from the shares of profits purchased from entrepreneurs. The credit capitalist lends credit at interest because that is the product the credit capitalist sells.  

In trade, wealth trades for wealth. So credit is the wealth the capitalist sells in a purchase and sale to buy a right of action. The right of action is wealth the entrepreneur sells in a purchase and sale to buy credit.

In his tirade against capitalism, silly-minded Thomas Piketty has said, "...the past devours the future," stealing his famous quip from another Frenchman, philosopher Henri Bergson. Yet, as I show in Thomas Piketty, Revivalist Preacher of Born-Again Socialism. The Second Great Awakening of Socialism has Come to America, wealth in the present that becomes capital creates the future.  In short, the present creates the future! And that is what capitalism and credit is all about. 

Income is the name given to property in cash or credit acquired in a purchase and sale for other wealth. An income tax is a tax on profit and thus the return to capital, but it isn't a tax on capital. It's a tax on wealth. All income taxes are taxes on wealth.

All income is the same, whether gained by the purchase and sale of work for cash and credit or gained by the purchase and sale of rights of action to future profit for cash and credit.

As I say in Interest, Capitalists and Futuristic Time Cops, for a theory to be useful and closer to truth, it must apply equally to many things observed. In agreement, de Fontenay said, "Wherever there is a revenue you perceive capital. The theory of revenue must be the same for all classes of human production." 

Income gained from capital gains is not different at all from income gained by labor. As bad and immoral as income taxation is, as long as income taxation is going to exist, then capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary wages and salaries precisely because all income is the same.

A tax on capital would be a fee paid to license a dump truck that hauls gravel to pave roads since the dump truck is the capital. A tax on capital would be a fee paid to pollute the air during the blasting of pig iron with pure oxygen while producing steel since the blast furnace is the capital. A tax on capital would be a fee paid for a building permit since the labor put to building is capital. 

A tax on capital would be an impact fee to develop one's property in undeveloped land. Undeveloped land goes into making improved land — land with structure on it — to become wealth when sold in a purchase and sale for cash and credit, often obtained through a mortgage.

If only Worstall had read my work, Why is the Economy So Horrible? Because Academia Economics is Fake, he could have disabused himself of many false beliefs. For a guy working for a free-markets, libertarian think tank, Worstall doesn't understand capitalism at all.

For most, obvious confusion rests in that most fail to see property means right of ownership and not what is owned.

• So anyone has property in chattel, which are things. 
• So anyone has property in work produced from the mind or the body, such as a surgeon who sells his surgery skills in operation and buys income. 
• So anyone has property in libability — right of action — against a debtor to whom he has lent credit in a purchase and sale of a share of profit.

The entirety of trade, or commerce, or real economics ties up with two words — property and profit. Without profit from effort, anyone would lack buying power to buy anything else. Without property, no one can trade. 

A society is association of strangers who have come together because of the desire to trade — to trade property for property, and when we talk about such property, we give it a name, wealth.

To trade, someone needs to produce property — the right of ownership — in chattel, in work or in rights of action — at surplus under efficiency (sales must exceed cost) to gain profit so to buy property in what is wanted (lacking) and sell property in what is not wanted (surplus). 

Bare subsistence manual labor isn't going to produce much property in surplus, if at all. So, producers take to using property in other things, or that which we call capital, to produce property in surplus, or that which we call stock, in hopes of sale, transmutting that stock into wealth; or if they are selling completed work, then transmuting property in labor, which is capital, directly into property in work, which is wealth of the laborer.

For most, their obvious confusion further gets exacerbated because the dynamics of trade — property in various states — is too much for their minds to grasp.

Most get lost in thinking about trade in the same way that most fail to grasp relativity. Thoughts of changing frames of reference are too hard for most to handle.

Capital is one thing and one thing only. The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. Capital is property of production. It doesn’t get much simpler.

So credit lent becomes capital of the entrepreneur used to buy fixed capital (buildings, equipment) or floating capital (electricity, diesel). So wealth used to capitalize a bank becomes the capital of the banker.

All of the names mankind uses for property — capital, wealth, asset, collateral, stock — are names of property in various states — production, trade, estimation, deals of credit, potential sales.

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FALLACY FRAUGHT FORBES TRIES TO STOKE FEARS OF HYPERINFLATION

Over at Forbes, in an article intended to stoke fears of hyperinflation, writer Mike Patton who touts himself as an ex-wire house worker and an investment adviser,  pens a piece fraught with fallacy. Patton's work is typical of many, having its basis on shop worn fallacies that never cease in causing mischief in the minds of many.

"Inflation may be defined as a general rise in prices" ~ Mike Patton

Anyone who claims that to be the true meaning of inflation would be wrong. 

In the fiduciary monetary system of centralized bank notes, inflation is merely the growth of the circulating media — cash, which is evidence of past deposits circulating in perpetuity and bank credit in the form of checkable deposits.

The damaging effect of inflation becomes revealed when the growth of credit outstrips the growth of output owing to credit being priced too cheap. 

The residential realty bubble of the 2000s is classic inflation. When enough became incapable of servicing their debt owed on credit extended, widespread bankruptcy erupted and inflation stopped. 

Writers from at least since 1810 through the early 1920s understood well what inflation means:

• Reflections on the abundance of paper in circulation, and the scarcity of specie; Francis, Sir Philip; J. Ridgway, 1810
• Currency inflation: how it has been produced and how it may profitably be reduced. Letters to the Hon. B.H. Bristow, secretary of the Treasury; Carey, Henry Charles; Collins, printer, 1874
• The principles of currency, and the error of “inflation”: an abstract of the Oxford lectures, applicable to financial questions in the United States; Price, Bonamy; H.L. Hinton & co., 1875
• Currency inflation and public debts: an historical sketch; Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson; Equitable Trust Company of New York, 1921

"Why does the Fed want inflation? Because inflation is a signal of a growing economy." ~ Mike Patton

All prices conform to the one, true infrangible law of trade, the Law of Prices. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer sets the price.

During times of excess credit, which is inflation, prices of the same assets get evaluated ever higher precisely because bidders have more buying power in the form of credit.

Contrary to Patton's claim, inflation is not a signal of a growing economy and thus Fed Res central bankers do not seek inflation based on that false belief.

As credit is another product, the same as cars and food, Fed Res bankers seek to inhibit the dollar from increasing in buying power relative to output. If output rises faster than cash in circulation, cash would buy more goods, more services, and more credit. As merchants of credit, bankers would earn less buying power.

"[W]hen the Fed expands the money supply, money is more plentiful..." ~ Mike Patton

Money is coined metal by weight and fineness. The Romans said so. It's their word. Even the U.S. Constitution supports that concept. 

Thus, it is impossible for Federal Reserve bankers to increase the amount of money in circulation. No money circulates goods, services or credit.

Today, Americans have cash. Specifically, Americans have legal tender cash. So too do Canadians have legal tender cash, the Brits, all those of the Eurozone, the Japanese, and so on. 

Cash arises as an artifact of banking. Money, if it existed, could exist irrespective of banking or of politicians and government agency.

Legal tender cash is centralized bank notes circulating in perpetuity. Seemingly, legal tender cash does the work of money, but never is cash actual money. 

Legal tender means Congress has decreed Fed Res banknotes as the only acceptable payment for debts owed to Congress. Whether legal tender or not, cash is denominated bank notes circulating as evidence of deposits. Deposits are bank credits.  

Federal Reserve bankers can strive to only increase deposits, cash or a combination thereof through re-discounting and through debt monetization of government bonds, buying bonds outright through conjured checking account credits.

"[W]hen the Fed reduces bank reserve requirements ... banks have more money to lend." ~ Mike Patton

Not only do bankers not lend money since money doesn't exist, but even in the days of money, bankers never lent money.

A bank is a firm that seeks profit through the business of selling its own credit. Through banking, bankers exchange their credit for the credit of others. Thus, a banker is a trader who buys cash and debt by selling bank credits. 

Bankers transmutes property into a form, which can get traded. Bankers facilitate the trade of merchant credit for bank credit, the trade of cash for bank credit and the trade of property in future profit for bank credit by holding lien against extant property.

Banking stands as the medium of exchange by making credit negotiable from one holder to another so that credit might work the same as money once did and as cash does now. Thus, a bank is a refinery for credit.

As a refiner of credit, bankers transmute credit, bankers transmuting property into credit through coining less merchantable property into more merchantable property, which is credit of general acceptability. In so doing, bankers engage in alchemy earning metaphorical gold when bankers earn profit through transmuting property into credit.

Bankers don't lend their own capital. Rather, bankers transmute the credit of depositors. In so doing, the guaranty of bankers upon this transmuted credit lets depositors trade upon this guaranty.

Bankers facilitate trade for wanted goods through bank checks.

"Another consequence of a significant expansion in the money supply is the devaluation of the currency." ~ Mike Patton

It's impossible to devalue currency. Currency means bearer negotiability. Bearer negotiability means the property (right of ownership) goes with possession. No need exists to prove title. 

Currency doesn't mean cash. The word currency isn't a synonym for the word cash. 

Anyone either has an instrument of currency or that one does not. Cash has currency. When you buy milk at the Quik-E-Mart with cash, you don't first prove to the cashier that you own the cash. The cashier readily takes your cash and lets you walk out the store with the milk.

"In essence, when there is a substantial increase in the supply of an item, including currencies, its value declines." ~ Mike Patton

Nothing has value. To claim the value of something declines is to fall for the fallacy of intrinsic value. Value is not a quality, an aspect of a thing residing absolutely within it.

It takes two things to make a value. Value results from the expression of a ratio of importance between two commodities in exchange. When one of two things in a purchase and sale is cash or credit denominated in cash, we give value another name. We call it price.

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THE PROPERTY-DESTROYING VIOLENCE OF NET METERING

Today, in Forbes, Tim Worstall typed a piece advocating an end to net metering.

Worstall supports the silly, faux argument that solar consumers "don’t pay to maintain the power grid." Worse, Worstall dresses that silly argument in the fallacy of appeal to emotion by claiming "they’re not paying their fair share of ... fixed costs."

Net metering ought to end, but not for the lame argument that Worstall makes. Net metering ought to end because such arrangement abrogates property of electricity firms and their freedom to contract.

Suppliers of oil, coal and of natural gas to electricity generators don't pay to maintain the power grid. Yet, no one argues that electricity firms ought to have the right and thus oil, coal and natural firms should have the duty to pay for the costs electricity firms incur to transmit electricity from plants to cities.

Instead, electricity firms buy oil, coal and natural gas to fuel their plants. Firm execs decide what fuel sources to buy depending upon market prices and what fuels their plants can burn.

Because of net metering, residential and commercial customers who generate excess electricity from solar installs supply already-generated electricity to electricity firms whose executives are required by law to buy.

Worstall's silly claim that those with solar only contribute to overhead when sucking power off the grid is akin to saying that if you only shop in Kroger's, Safeway or Publix once a month, you are contributing to the overhead of their physical stores, but you don't buy enough for those firms to profit upon you, thus you should be banned from shopping at all at those stores.

In trade, all firms get held to the great Axiom of Profit and the infrangible Law of Prices. The Axiom of Profit holds the sum of sales must at least equal the cost of production otherwise firms go to ruin. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale for what is on offer set the price.

The sum of sales for electricity sellers comes from rate payers and not from suppliers of fuel used to generate electricity. It is from the sales of electricity to rate payers that electricity-selling firms pay their expenses. If they have planned their businesses right, they might break even.

A better argument to end net metering would be thus:

1. Executives of electricity firms cannot know how much solar install exists at any time, nor can these executive know how much sun shall shine over a futures contract period for oil or natural gas, nor how efficient the production of electricity from solar shall be during this period. 
2. Times of solar abundance pushes higher the true price electricity firms have paid already for oil, coal and natural gas, thus increasing costs and reducing the likelihood of break even.
3. Thus, executives cannot forecast and mitigate risks to insure break even. 
4. Therefore, executives should not be forced to deal with commercial and residential customers who wish to sell their excess electricity to their local utility.

Wal-Mart execs aren't forced by law to buy products from any wholesaler nor any manufacturer. No franchise in the NFL is forced to draft any player nor contract with any player. Forcing any electric utility to do the same violates their freedom of contract, freedom of association and their property in capital and property in wealth.

Worstall makes his silly argument based on the faux science of economics. In WHY IS THE ECONOMY SO HORRIBLE? BECAUSE ACADEMIA ECONOMICS IS FAKE, I show how trade of property for profit is the only basis upon which anyone can discuss trade or commerce or authentic economics.

Americans need to come to understand that there isn't "The Grid." "The Grid" is pure fiction that politicians spin on behalf of electric utilities hoping to get Americans to subsidize the capital of these firms, thus increasing their unearned profit.

There are firms, which sell electricity to residential and commercial customers. There are firms, which own and operate high voltage transmission lines connected by towers. There are firms that own electrical generation power plants, which buy the services of transmission-line operators in the same way that manufacturers hire long-haul truckers to haul goods to wholesalers and wholesalers hiring the same to haul goods to retailers. In the past, firms did all three — generate, transmit and sell.

Americans do not own "the Grid" in the same way that Americans do not own the U.S. Interstate highway system. Congress owns the U.S. Interstate highways.

Congress imposes the duty on you to pay taxes for the Interstates. Congress gives itself the right to collect taxes from you. Congress gives you the right to travel the Interstates. Congress imposes the duty upon itself to let you travel the Interstates.

Firms run transmission lines from more than one power plant, which are the sources, to the same city, which is the sink. This is done to ensure that electricity stays running in case of failure at any power plant.

If you don't know what net metering is, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a federal law, requires all public electric utilities to facilitate net metering to their customers upon request.  Net metering requires electricity firms to accept electricity generated by commercial and residential customers through renewable methods, such as solar panels, and then reduce bills of these customers by the amount of electricity they have generated.

If you don't know what property means, property means ownership, a bundle of rights — right for possession (Jus Possidendi), right for using (Jus Utendi), right for destroying, alienating (Jus Abutendi), right for recovery when found in the wrongful possession of another (Jus Vindicandi).

Property means the right of ownership and never the thing owned.

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