I've been playing with ideas from a few sources and trying to explain to myself why our economy seems to be stuck in "neutral". Tell me if you think I am pointed in the right direction. I found this video by Robert Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor under Clinton and he seems to have some pretty good ideas:
1. Since 1980 GDP has doubled but wages have been flat. (See graph one and graph two.)
GDP in trillions
Median Income adjusted to 2010 dollars
2. Almost all of the gains have gone to the super rich.
3. The power of the wealthy has driven the top marginal tax rate down since 1979.
Top tax rate is 35% but the rich pay far less
4. Our total tax receipts are 14.9% of our GDP. The last time that our receipts were this low was 1943!
5. Consumer spending equals 60% of our GDP. In order to get our economy going we have to get the middle class feeling like they can spend money again.
I'm not an economist, I don't even play one on TV, but so many of the answers to our economic problems seem like a matter of common sense. I just seems that common sense isn't ever in the interests of those in control of the economy. Why are we always held hostage to this Apres Moi, La Deluge mindset?
6 comments:
Reich is pretty much correct, but he neglects the military budget in the US. That is another major factor in the problem for two reasons:
1) These people have loads of money
2) They want to keep the military budget high
I have a theory about the revisionist history of the Second Amendment coinciding with the rise of the Military Industrial complex as mentioned by President Eisenhower.
Vietnam was a test case that showed war was unpopular if everyone had to sacrifice--the "volunteer", or all-welfare army was better since only those poor sods who needed jobs(the dregs of society) went into the military.
Of course, there is another phenomenon of people lying about their military service to be "patriotic", but that's a very weird aside.
Yes, it would make more sense for income equality, or at least spreading the wealth around more. But these people are greed freaks. They want the money and they want the power. This is an emotional thing, not a rational one.
If it were rational--we would be in a much better position.
This is kind of complicated for a comment. A very interesting book that covers the basics of what is going on is Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott.
I think that the extreme right WANTS this so that they can bring about facism--again a long topic for a comment.
The occupation movement is one of the best things to have happened.
This is your missing link for the answer to this question--again from Robert Reich:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MJ_1VtFQZJs#!
That's brilliant. Again, so much of what Reich has to say is just common sense, but I believe the same things you are saying about facism. Most conservatives seem to think that things would run a lot more smoothly if there wasn't this messy democracy thingy in the way.
Laci,I'm going to post the video with thanks to you.
You're welcome.
The book on Keynes and Hayek is quite interesting since Hayek and the Austrian School are really popular with the Neo-Cons--even though the Austrian School is basically do nothing in regard to the economy. Their attitude toward economic cycles is "tough shit".
well worth a read!
Post a Comment