What ME Worry? Part 3
In Part 3, we further stir the pot in an attempt to answer many questions, the answers to which have effected a decades long socio-economic malaise.
A quick recap... In Part 1, although real gross private domestic investment appears to be on the rise, net private domestic investment, real net private domestic investment, and fixed investment EX-residential reveal a grim truth spanning decades of decline.
In I Want To Believe? and Trust No One? we demonstrated how labor markets have been effected by the above.
In Part 2, we continued down the path to see what happens when private and public investment decline while real estate and stock market speculation run amok. Moving West...
Ironically, to defend the manufactured STEM shortage, xenophobic backlash is commonly used. Bring the best, the brightest, your tired, poor, and huddled masses, etc. as immigration controlled by common sense is welcome. However, any attempt to manage political and economic crises, by seizing the power of moving bodies as human capital under FALSE pretense, are not welcome.
Moving West in an attempt to answer our many questions in this series:
Why have these structural tax code issues, which affect and effect many socio-economic problems not been appropriately addressed in the last five decades? Special interests? Divisive gridlock by design? At the end of the day, who profits and who loses?
wage suppression, outsourcing to labor at the margin, false claims of qualified labor shortages, importation of cheaper labor, the decimation of a durable and sustainable economy, a stagnant non durable service based economy, a lack of economic opportunity, a lower standard of living, widening of income inequality, and the rise of nationalist populism.
Speaking of which, the age old "art of lying" attempts to misdirect the blame for socio-economic problems on non christians, non heterosexuals, non whites, non corporate trade unions and non citizens. Populist promises or efforts to curtail the growth of those groups will somehow make all the problems go away? Pin the tail on the donkey or scapegoating, never has and never will, as divisive misdirection based in falsehood only protracts problems and ultimately resolves nothing.
As we are witnessing, attempts through corporate, governmental and monetary policy based in FALSITY or under FALSE pretense, to perform political and economic justice, only fail at the expense of our citizens, economy and society at large viz. an ironic tragedy of the commons.
One last thing that could go wrong, and not wholly unrelated... the election of a decades long succession of Manchurian Candidates which reflect the electorates growing ignorance, frustration and socio-economic woes.
Coming full circle, perhaps Mad Magazine's mascot is a deserving parody of much more than the disconnect between the stock, housing market and socio-economic conditions? Ironic and tragic indeed. What ME Worry?
Recommended reading:
America’s biggest economic problem: Nobody is investing for tomorrow
Restoring Investment in America’s Economy
The Hutchins Center Explains: Public Investment
The Truth Is Out There?
What ME Worry?
I Want To Believe?
Trust No One?
What ME Worry? Part 2
The Architects Of Their Own Demise
H1B Visa and Labor
For the intrepid, here is the primer which attempts to explain the condition of our economic condition, There Is Something In This More Than Natural, read them in order, pay heed and abide.
A quick recap... In Part 1, although real gross private domestic investment appears to be on the rise, net private domestic investment, real net private domestic investment, and fixed investment EX-residential reveal a grim truth spanning decades of decline.
In I Want To Believe? and Trust No One? we demonstrated how labor markets have been effected by the above.
In Part 2, we continued down the path to see what happens when private and public investment decline while real estate and stock market speculation run amok. Moving West...
A reminder... Investment increases the following: the nation’s capital stock, aggregate production and demand for labor, the economy’s potential output and thus its standard of living in the long run. - Trust No One?
One must not confuse saving: income not spent, with financing: debt incurred against future income for current expenditures. - What ME Worry? Part 2More reminders.... Investment is a component of aggregate demand which represents a choice to postpone consumption viz. it requires saving. One can also borrow against the future in racking up debt public or private. To reap future benefits said debt or savings, rather than lying fallow in financialism (asset speculation), must be utilized as investments in capital expenditures, infrastructure, education and training.
In declaring a skills crisis when you spend little to nothing on vocational education, it looks like somebody is talking out the side of their mouth. Specifically corporate employers, whom have convinced the government and unsuspecting public that a non existent STEM shortage constitutes a crisis. - Trust No One?Telling a lie enough times doesn’t make it true, period. However, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
"It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.
For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X - published 18 July 1925For many that fact is sadly true, as the manipulation of what is by design becoming an increasingly ignorant electorate is quite easily achieved. In catering to the electorates FUD viz. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, corporate honchos and government politicos have torn a page straight from Hitler's playbook.
Ironically, to defend the manufactured STEM shortage, xenophobic backlash is commonly used. Bring the best, the brightest, your tired, poor, and huddled masses, etc. as immigration controlled by common sense is welcome. However, any attempt to manage political and economic crises, by seizing the power of moving bodies as human capital under FALSE pretense, are not welcome.
Moving West in an attempt to answer our many questions in this series:
"What happens when self interest, short term thinking, and speculation in housing and stock markets run amok? Rather than the twin deficits (budget and trade), perhaps we should discuss the resulting private and public investment deficit?
Investing more in your own stock than real future economic endeavor? When government, corporate and monetary policies all follow this misallocation of capital, whatever happens?
In order to perpetuate this manufactured lie, are the public allowing government, corporate and monetary policy based in false doctrine to sacrifice our future on the altar of money? And what are the long term consequences of such?"There exists an obvious decades old need for proper incentives in investment for: capex, business expansion, new endeavor, education and retraining; as well as disincentives for capital (savings or debt) lying fallow (dividends, stock buybacks, asset market speculation) due to margin or rent seeking.
Why have these structural tax code issues, which affect and effect many socio-economic problems not been appropriately addressed in the last five decades? Special interests? Divisive gridlock by design? At the end of the day, who profits and who loses?
The ME first generation (I WANT it ALL and I WANT it NOW) might find out soon enough. The first result is stock market and housing assets become disconnected asset bubbles while the real economy stinks up the joint, viz. over 70% of the emasculated economy becomes service based and reliant upon consumer spending and the largess of others (foreign US debt holders). - What Me Worry Part 2What else could go wrong? Over the decades, a short back of the napkin list... tax cuts for corps and wealthy, increased budget and trade deficits, burgeoning national debt, declines in public investment in infrastructure, education and corporate capex...
wage suppression, outsourcing to labor at the margin, false claims of qualified labor shortages, importation of cheaper labor, the decimation of a durable and sustainable economy, a stagnant non durable service based economy, a lack of economic opportunity, a lower standard of living, widening of income inequality, and the rise of nationalist populism.
Speaking of which, the age old "art of lying" attempts to misdirect the blame for socio-economic problems on non christians, non heterosexuals, non whites, non corporate trade unions and non citizens. Populist promises or efforts to curtail the growth of those groups will somehow make all the problems go away? Pin the tail on the donkey or scapegoating, never has and never will, as divisive misdirection based in falsehood only protracts problems and ultimately resolves nothing.
As we are witnessing, attempts through corporate, governmental and monetary policy based in FALSITY or under FALSE pretense, to perform political and economic justice, only fail at the expense of our citizens, economy and society at large viz. an ironic tragedy of the commons.
One last thing that could go wrong, and not wholly unrelated... the election of a decades long succession of Manchurian Candidates which reflect the electorates growing ignorance, frustration and socio-economic woes.
Coming full circle, perhaps Mad Magazine's mascot is a deserving parody of much more than the disconnect between the stock, housing market and socio-economic conditions? Ironic and tragic indeed. What ME Worry?
Recommended reading:
America’s biggest economic problem: Nobody is investing for tomorrow
Restoring Investment in America’s Economy
The Hutchins Center Explains: Public Investment
The Truth Is Out There?
What ME Worry?
I Want To Believe?
Trust No One?
What ME Worry? Part 2
The Architects Of Their Own Demise
H1B Visa and Labor
For the intrepid, here is the primer which attempts to explain the condition of our economic condition, There Is Something In This More Than Natural, read them in order, pay heed and abide.
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