Who isn't an economic theorist nowadays? How did we all get to this rocky place that neither my generation nor my parents' recognize as a familar landscape? Who do we "blame"-- the white collar criminals, the corporate industrial debt complex, previous administrations, lax governmental regulation agencies, consumers, the wealthy, the poor?
During the flush years, many of us with green-hued consciences were horrified to witness an exponential increase in conspicuous consumption, teardowns replaced by cookie-cutter architecturally monstrous American dreams which should have never been realized, giant Humvees on the road, and exurban McMansion developments named after the natural environments they had replaced, such as "Hidden Creek" and "Shady Glen." It seemed that everything and everyone was on the fast track to more, bigger, more, bigger, more, more, more! And, now, everyone is hunkering down, not spending, and waiting it out. Thus, no money into the economy from consumers, less products needing to be manufactured, job layoffs resulting from decreased demand, and consequently less money in the hands of consumers...so less spending. The circle spirals downwards and downwards, driving unemployment to double digits, and it's all ultra-complicated by that nasty subprime mortgage-based securities debacle and a government-supported corporate industrial debt complex. Follow me?
Enter the Neo-Keynesians! If consumers aren't spending, and business isn't spending, who is going to get the economy rolling again? The government! I can't profess to understand all the subtleties of monetarism vs. Keynesian economics, but it makes sense to me that when stuck between a rock (the mounting and mounting and mounting national and personal debt) and a hard place (adding to that mountain of debt), you might have to choose the hard place in order to stop the Charybdis-like spiral we are now experiencing.
Promoting lax regulation and a free, unbridled market is what got us into this mess in the first place. At least, that's what this amateur economic theorist is hypothesizing. The market doesn't have a conscience, green or otherwise. Government has to serve that role. Am I advocating socialism and not capitalism? Who says the two have to be mutually exclusive? Perhaps we will utlize the best of each approach in order to set our priorities straight, and we'll spend our money on education, healthcare, shovel-ready capital improvement projects, and green energy technologies, and put people to work while improving our nation and society. Or, I guess we could just advocate what's been advocated for the past 8 years or so (gee, why so specific with the "8"?), and return to a culture of promoting irresponsible consumption and rampant deregulation. I dunno. What do you think?
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
(Albert Einstein)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yesterday, Obama announced one goal of his administration is to halve deficit spending by the end of his first term. This administration is well aware of the ever mounting debt and huge amount of American currency owned by China and other nations. The previous administration slashed corporate taxes, gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy, and drove us further into debt. Well, now the day of reckoning has come.
ReplyDelete