- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Holding neither a a degree in economics, nor a job as a professional in any business in the financial services sector, I can attest that these are not necessary when reading the tea leaves to predict the future of the U.S. economy. Reading the news, business, and opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal over the last few years, and augmenting this with other reading materials, let me submit a few observations as an unaccredited lay person.
More money is made from handling money itself rather than from manufacturing. The former based on debt and speculation, while the latter creates real economic prosperity through exportation of tangible goods and services. This behavior is historically typical of impending economic decline.
Americans spend 125% of their incomes. While this may seem pale compared to the British, who spend 155% percent of their incomes, this is not a sustainable model.
GDP includes all expenditures, even those mired in deficit spending. Our trade deficits with China, a country financing our consumer spending, along with what we're spending on the so-called "war on terror," creates an artificial "GDP" that just accelerates our ever-increasing debt.
And for those who think that capitalism is just a "force of nature," please note a few other "benign" actions of government:
While holding lower and middle class Americans accountable to their debts by restricting bankruptcy protections and upholding often corrupt mortgage practices that continue to squeeze these people, the Bush administration has sought to limit shareholder lawsuits, limit corporate taxes, and limit corporate liability on a number of other fronts.
There is no such thing as "free trade," or "open markets." Anyone who still believes this claptrap is one of the few still benefitting from financial inequality.
As we watch jobs shift around the world under the guise of these so-called globalization attributes, the rich in the financial services sector continue to get richer, and those of us in labor... i.e. manufacturing, IT, and other services sectors, continue to get poorer. And it is these same people who complain about "welfare" and "nanny-states" who still reap the (hopefully) ever-declining rewards of corporate welfare in the form of "bail-outs" or "cash infusions" into the financial markets.
As a casual observer, this system is completely rotten and corrupt, and probably will implode as it seems beyond correction.
Looking forward to 1929, I remain. That will probably seem like a cake-walk compared to what we're now facing.
