The Keynes of Marx; the brother Groucho that is
While watching the classic comedy Animal Crackers, I laughed as Groucho Marx – playing the character Captain Spaulding – engaged a gentleman named Chandler in a very funny Marxian discussion of inflation and fiat money:
The nickel today is not what it was fifteen years ago. Do you know what this country needs today?...A seven-cent nickel. Yessiree, we've been using the five-cent nickel in this country since 1492. Now that's pretty near a hundred years' daylight saving. Now, why not give the seven-cent nickel a chance? If that works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. Think what that would mean. You could go to a newsstand, buy a three-cent newspaper and get the same nickel back again. One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime! (from Filmsite.org)
Note the absurd application of a Keynesian Money Multiplier effect, where inflation allows a carefully spent nickel to last a lifetime. Of course, the gentleman falls for the muddled logic and obfuscation, responding, "Captain Spaulding, I think that is a wonderful idea." One wonders if the Chandler character isn't simply a composite sketch of the typical congressman.
Oh, if life was only so easy.
Comments (2)
Bill Jones
I think Jim's got this exactly backwards.
Prior to the establishment of the Fed a nickel did
actually increase in value: i.e. it would buy more each succeeding year. Try pluging in some numbers here
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
What cost $100 in 1823 would cost $72.50 in 1913
What cost $100 in 1913 would cost $1818.92 in 2003.
Marx is a hard money man.
bill Jones
Published: January 9, 2007 3:17 PM
Richard
Chandler is the characterization of the general public, the average voter. Captain Spalding is the fast talking politician.
Groucho proves "if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does", and if you spread it on fast and thick, people will buy whatever you're selling so quick they'll forget their own name.
"Captain Spaulding, I think that is a wonderful idea." says Chandler, to which Spalding comments "well, then there can't be much to it".
Published: April 6, 2009 7:05 AM