Seriously, I don't have a problem with what you say, I just don't think we can do it anymore.
Understood. With the world's economy going into free-fall, now is NOT the time to worry about why the American economy has been slowly going into the crapper.
Now is NOT the time to raise taxes, either.
REMEMBER I SAID that, would you?
NOW is NOT the time to RAISE TAXES or BALANCE THE BUDGET or any of the other things that in different economic circumstances MIGHT have MADE sense.
If we institute a large protectionist tariff right now to protect American industry from competition (Smoot-Hawly much?) what do you think the result would be?
We don't have to do that now, I suspect. The time to have done that was thirty years ago.
Why7 don't we have to do that now?
Because the cost of imported good is likely to rise so much people won't be able to buy them anyway.
A depression like the last time we did it. Worse, a long drawn out trip to the World Court who would tell us to stop it? Tariffs against our goods would immediately go up all around the world. What would that do to workers and businesses here?
See above.
So you end up slapping down one set of workers in order to save another. That's just playing favorites.
Oh, NOW we notice that every tariff policy has winners and losers?
The sad thing is, that for th elast 40 years we have been willing to create ten times as many losers as we were creating winners, and I didn't hear you noting that fact, Tech ESQ.
Why not?
Well I cannot speak for you, but based on what I have been reading, that arrogant indifference to the working class that so many people here have expressed, I have to tell you the reason some people have failed to note what has been happening is because of the
IA GOT MINE GET YOURS, JACK, attitude and hubris of the bougouise class who STILL had decent jobs.
Class treason is ANOTHER way of describing it.
A complete misunderstanding of how national economies work, might be the kinder way of describing the problem, too.
In the meantime, one thing we do produce a lot of here, that we are competitive with around the world is agricultural goods.
And we do that with damned FEW workers, don't we? That's won't really help all that much. We've been bankrupting family farmers for so long that won't help much at all.
We throw up a high tariff and I hope you are hungry, cuz you're gonna have a lot to eat bud. Oh, on the way to bankrupting ADM, ConAgra and the tens of thousands of workers they employ.
Yeah, I see your point. It's overstated but it's got some validity, I agree.
It is correct to say that free trade is imperfect. But it needs to be fixed with a screw driver, not a sledge hammer.
Yeah and that is exactly what I have been saying for the last six months since I started posting here.
You and I are not so far apart in theory as I think you suspect we are, Tech. I'm just a few light-years ahead of you, I think.
I warned and warned and warned this board where we were headed AND WHY, too.
But because the fucking stock market was doing well, people (with money to invest) assumed the national economy was doing swell.
Well the situation has changed rather considerably in the last six months hasn't it?
So let me tell you what the solution is today, and then you can tell me why you think I am wrong again, and then six months from now when you decide that I'm right you can mischaracterize my solutions as being too excessive again, okay?
We are having (or entering) a CLASSIC DEFLATIONARY DEPRESSION.
Why?
Because we fucked over the working class for the last 40 years, that's why.
The rich had so fucking much money, that all they could do with it is invest it into BUBBLES.
There weren't enough CONSUMERS to buy the crap the SUPPLE SIDERS (with FAR too much money tio invest, money that was chasing FAR too few profits) could possibly sustain.
So while the real estate values were going up faster than the average person sould afford them (so the wroking class borrowed too much and now can't pay it back) and the stock market prices were INFLATING, all those were were nothing but
BUBBLES.
We were NOT creating wealth (you ONLY do that by making STUFF!) we were merely inflating the money going to fewer and fewer AMERICANS
And now that those bubble have popped, we all FEEL POOR.
Well, most of us are actually pretty poor, but now the TECH ESQ class is beginning to feel poor, too.
Welcome to our world, amigo.
And so the still reasonably affluent don't SPEND MONEY, and the vicious cycle of DEflation gets worse.
The solution?
Keyneisan SPENDING.
We have got to replace the TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars that were lost when those bubbles poppped but THIS TIME we'd best get that money into the hands of the CONSUMERS.
Not the fucking bankers who cause this mess, but the workers who we've been screwing for the last 40 years.
Failure to do that will simply keep this DEPRESSION going and getting worse.
Do you understand what I am saying here?
Inflation isn't the boogieman DEFLATION is.
The hard headed fiscal conservatives (who I so often agree with) are WRONG now.
TOTALLY,
inescapably WRONG.
Now the recent bankers' bail out was STUPIDLY designed and once again, what do we SEE?
We see these MORNONS thinking there's a SUPPLY SIDE solution to the CONSUMER SIDE problem.
We are so god damned used to catering our economy to the RICH, we kneejerked 750 BILLION dollars to EXACTLY the WRONG people!
Working people do have any fucking money, Tech. Don't you get that?
Not cause they're lazy, not cause of unions, but because the AUSTRIAN ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES have been taken to
EXCESS.
Just as in 1929, the fucking stupid RICH have killed the geese that lay the golden eggs.
