(Editor Brandon Hayes, with multiple authors)
We have some very serious issues with our economics and our economy as current:
Plausible Bubbles (short list; none are ever sure, when one goes others follow or become hidden):
Student Debt
Credit Debt (That’s cards and lines from banks)
Housing
Commercial Real-estate
Automobiles
Healthcare
State Pensions
Federal Debt
Crypto
AND MORE!!!
But, but, but…. Our economy is doing so well; ah, yeah sure, til it isn’t. Look we measure GDP and average income. Both of which have nothing to do with quality of life for individuals and everything to do with leveraging our position on the world financial stage. We run a fiat currency that has no corresponding tangible hard asset (like gold). And we love exaggerating (lying) about the financial shape we’re in [American’s do this personally].
When we measure and aim at growing something (like GDP) that doesn’t directly translate to well-being (measurements to be debated about), this arguably translates to more suffering, we have an immoral measure; as it doesn’t take morality nor mortality into consideration. It puts them on the back burner, favoring an ever-climbing number. {You can never stop chasing numbers; as numbers never stop running; money is a BAD aim.}
Next, our traditional economic models are wrong. Nearly all economics is based on this ludicrous assumption of human behavior:
“Rational choice theory: is an economic principle that assumes that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions that provide them with the highest amount of personal utility.”
I studied economics and marketing in college [among other things] (I was a business major), even then this assumption was asinine. We teach marketing as psychological manipulation; meaning we teach to advertise to irrational agents because we KNOW for a fact they are not rational. To build models based on rational agents is moronic to the point of offense; and dangerous because it doesn’t predict anything properly.
So far, without even scratching the surface of how complicated economics is at the scales we operate at, we have glaring errors in our framework. What could possibly happen, who could imagine things going array!?! < internet sarcasm.
It’s time to change; it’s way past time to change; the next market correction is going to put people back on their heels; more over it’s going to knock people back on their asses. It’s time to wake up, pay attention. < repeated mantras
What follows is a list of jobs that could be culled back 90%+:
Anything that has to do with pushing paper: lawyer, accountant, financier, traders, stock brokers, administrators, legislatures, lobbyists, and so on. [You do nothing but create hurdles for others actually doing work; and we don’t need you.]
Anything that is a net value loss: most dirty energy jobs (we should seek energy independence), anything in a cubical that requires a commute, anything sales related (stop selling us shit we don’t need nor do we want it [people just don’t know they don’t]), etc.
Anything that’ll soon be replaced by technology: Driver of any sort, fast food of any sort, most store clerks and cashiers (see Amazon’s new walk-in and walk-out stores), lecturing (see youtube), etc.
^All this, rough and incomplete, and off the top of my head after only one cup of coffee.
Look, we could pay people half their salaries to stay HOME and sort their family out, clean their communities up, and reduce the stress that the 9-5 lifestyle induces. And it would be better (more beneficial) than them showing up at work.
We made a mistake during the last crash to bail out the banks (more crooks that ought to be out of jobs) we should have bailed out students and homeowners; it was our money and we gave it to the .001% and the government; have we not learned a god-damned thing?
The economy of the future is based on local exchange, sustainable supply chains, and a reduction in excess movement of goods. It’s family centric, energy creating, and value added. It’s quality lifetime products not throw away plastic garbage; it’s centered around children and the future NOT me, me, me, now, now, now! That’s not getting us anywhere take a look around at the twilight zone reality in which you reside.
Libertarians and an-caps you don’t have the answers; your approaches are as flawed as those in use currently and we don’t have the time, energy, nor the wherewithal for you to give it a whirl.
Marxists; you’ve been so wrong and murdering millions for so long I have a hard time understanding why we even let you speak.
“Let’s get this labor thing straight. Labor has no value other than under capitalism we can create a consumer out of the laborer which organizes the very fractional contribution of labor into large groups producing many complex parts, and the complex part provides the value.
The profit on the price is required to organize others in this network.
That’s the whole thing. If you’re ‘labor’ you aren’t ‘value’ to others, since none of us is productive enough to matter. What matters is multipliers, and labor isn’t one.
Labor’s primary value lies in (a) you are at least self supporting because (b) as a slave you’re even less productive, and (c) as a barbarian you’re a parasite.
The value is in organizing using incentives using prices and profits.” – Curt Doolittle
Here I should square the circle of time. If your labor isn’t worth anything (and in and of itself, it isn’t) then your time is worth nothing to others; but it is worth EVERYTHING to you and it should be. You have one life [80 years old]; it’s roughly 700,000 hours; you’ll spend a 3rd of those sleeping, leaving you with 467,200 waking hours. If you’re spending a majority of YOUR waking hours working at something you hate, cut that out right now!
You ought to value your own time above all else; BUT you can’t force others to value it nor pay you for it. You must create something with your time and offer it as fair value exchange. This is the only way to make your time worth anything to others. Just because you show up and do a job; doesn’t mean you’re adding anything of worth [it’s still very hard to find good employees, ask any employer]. Master something (anything) and make your time worthwhile.
I have deep sympathy for people living currently; as I am one of them. I have no problems walking in other’s shoes. We have lied strategically to generations of humans (all the generations), we are at a unique point in time where the lies can be rooted out and have real light shown upon them. Many of them (lies) are painful to let go, but never in history has there been a lie that didn’t come back and take its toll in the future. Reality doesn’t take kindly to being mischaracterized!