Sunday, July 31, 2011

Debt, Consumer, Democracy:Work for Money

The debt ceiling, spending cuts and raising taxes are in the news. That's putting it mildly. It's a simple problem in essence. People should work. People should get paid for work. When one person doesn't work then at least one other has to shoulder that undone work. Our economy is made up of app. 70% of consumers. In other words , effectively 70% of us consume more than they produce. That's not sustainable yet it has been going on for decades. How is it possible? Technology provides slave-like work . We ship the jobs we refuse to do to other countries and thereby enrich others. And debt covers the rest of the shortfall. We borrow as a nation so we don't have to work. America's currency is a reserve currency of the world. I.E. it underpins the worlds economy. Yet we borrow more than we produce. That's also unsustainable . So the reserve currency status is in jeopardy. Which means that if we lose that postion prices will rise. Which will further exacerbate the debt and lack of work issues.

In the future we will have to work more. At the least our economy will have to be 50% manufacturer and 50% consumer.

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