Unfortunately, your initial premises are wrong. The global economy
hasn`t at all put us into a "position." Several months ago, I would
have intuitively agreed with your argument. But then, for weird
reasons, I got very interested in economics. My first step was to read
some books by Lester C. Thurow, who, although he`s a Democrat, is a
very good and well-respected economist. (And he writes in a way I can
actually understand.)
From there, I began to understand that we should all want a global
economy, and that it should organize and stabilize as quickly as
possible. Increasing manufacturing here in the US isn`t going to work
anymore. We already had so much capacity, we couldn`t sell what we
could make.
A key reason is that as the other developed nations reached America`s
level, forming "The First World," we all ran out of markets. Emerging
"Second World" nations could be helped along, to create new markets.
China is an example, and now we`ve got people who want to buy cars
again. Third World nations aren`t even at that point, so we need to
build them up so they`ll buy cars. (And other stuff.)
How are Mr. & Mrs. African Farmer going to afford a TV or computer,
if they don`t have enough money to buy those things? Where do they get
the money? One option is to build a Toyota factory in their town, hire
them, and with the salary they`ll buy something else.
We can send over American electrical engineers to help install a power
grid, communications lines, and fiber-optics. Then the computers will
work. We can send over companies to make movies and TV shows so their
new televisions will have something to watch.
The problem there is that America is producing less and less new
"stuff." That too, is changing, with the emerging small- and
micro-business economy.
On the other hand, we`ve just about wiped out R&D, we pay little
attention to individual inventors, and we artificially support obsolete
industries. American steel is low quality compared to foreign steel,
mostly because of that protection.
When the gov`t supports a failing industry, the industry has no
incentive to compete or improve, developing better products people
actually want. And so, American steel remained static, and was
overtaken by international companies producing higher quality steel,
faster, more efficiently, in better processes, at better prices.
Same with the textile industry, agriculture, and the auto industry.
Should we continue to throw money into a black hole of stagnant
manufacturing?
Then there`s the whole problem of payroll taxes, and the added charges
for social welfare programs. Why pay an hourly wage in one country,
where high percentages of that rate go to social welfare? Other
countries would offer the same rate of take-home pay, but without the
extra payroll taxes mean a lower overall labor cost.
The problem of the economy is paradoxical. On the one hand, it`s a
complex system, so single answers mean nothing. But at the same time,
it`s a fundamentally simple problem based on the natural aspects of
everyday human nature.
At that lowest level, ecomonics for the past 200 years has been founded
on a basic assumption that all human beings naturally prefer to help
someone else before satisfying their own self interest. That`s
changing, particularly with the emerging global market model.
More and more, economists are starting to understand (to me, it`s
obvious) that people will first try to improve their own lives, THEN
think about offering help to others after having some abundance to
share. That`s not in context of catastrophes, it`s in context of
ordinary daily life.
The morality of altruism is dying, to be replaced by self-interest and an assumption of general good will toward others.
CraigL2008-10-20 18:55:20
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