The Economy: The Blondie and Dagwood Version (In Leta's Opinion, At Least):
1. Capitalism, the dominant economic system of planet Earth, is based on perpetual growth. It is a fact. I am not against capitalism; it has enabled human progress like no system before it, but it's clearly not a sustainable system. Perpetual economic growth is based on perpetual human population growth (more workers = more wealth created = more money in circulation = higher standard of living for everyone). The first world countries (i.e., capitalistic countries) have been at zero to negative population growth for a while now. The countries that still have population growth are not going to have it forever, or even very long- world population is going to start declining, big time, in about 50 years.
2. The theory of supply side economics spawned the neo-conservative movement. Neo-con foreign policy is a direct reflection of the idea that wars are fought over trade and/or resources. (And they are, but wars are also fought over other stuff, too.) The problem with these notions- supply side econ, trickle down theory, free trade, etc.- is that it has hurt local economies all.over.the.world. Think about NAFTA for a minute. The Americans who were put out of work by NAFTA weren't unemployed because the products they made were no longer needed- they were made in Mexico, where the workers were paid pennies on the dollar. Those south of the border factory jobs didn't lift the Mexican workers out of poverty, and NAFTA was never designed to do that. It allowed the corporate masters to become more profitable, rather than allowing the workers to become more prosperous. The net result wasn't cheaper cars (or clothes, or widgets, or whatever), it was more profitable cars. So instead of money being spent locally, it went into Bill Ford, Jr.'s trust, where it sat, and earned him more money, but didn't contribute to overall prosperity in any meaningful way.
3. Standard of living and credit. The average U.S. family now earns less, in real terms, than in the 1970s. The stagflation '70s! Hardly boom years. The reason that our standard living has continued to rise or at least stayed the same, is, in a nutshell, because we've been running it on credit. We as individuals and this country as a collective have been racking up credit card bills for 30 years. This is not sustainable. Sooner or later, that house of cards (tax cuts + same ol' or even increased spending; trickle down a.k.a. voodoo economics) is going to collapse. It is inevitable.
4. The end of manufacturing/resource depletion. When you turn raw materials- let's say trees- into finished goods- let's say furniture- you are literally creating wealth. We don't really do that in this country anymore. We treat ourselves like a colony: we take our wood, ship it to Asia, and ship furniture back home, because it's cheaper than paying Americans to do it. Other countries do this, too, and it is bonkers. It is one of the many ways that money ends up in multinational's hands, just chilling in a Cayman bank account somewhere rather than increasing overall prosperity.
5. Obsession with finance (moving money around to make a profit) rather than wealth creation (turning wood into furniture). All you really need to know about finance is this: it isn't real. It's paper. That's it.
6. Utter lack of political will. Both parties have blood all over their hands looking at this economic carnage. As do European and Asian leaders. George H.W. Bush, who I think is a decent and intelligent man, he is the one who dubbed trickle down economics "voodoo economics". And you know what GHWB's nickname was when he was in Congress? Rubbers. Rubbers Bush, because he was constantly agitating for more funding to be put toward family planning. He sold his soul to run with Reagan, and a voice of reason was silenced forever, in a way that we are still watching play out. It makes me terribly sad.
There is more, oh man, is there more, but these are the biggies. This is why this is such a complicated problem to solve- it's not any one thing, it's many things, all of which are coming to a head at more or less the same time. We haven't had this type of economy for very long, only since WWII, really, but it's like we've completely lost sight of what life was like 70 or 80 years ago, or for most of human history for that matter. We don't teach history in school anymore (I minored in history in college, entirely because of one singularly brilliant teacher, so I have a bias here, I admit) and I can't help but think that that's part of it.
Long story short: Capitalism and this standard of living is a tsunami, not a river. There will a break in the wave, and we are watching it happen
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