04-02-2020, 07:58 AM
All problems start with debt. Some amount of debt actually makes some sense, but bailing out lenders is bad policy. When you have a system that bails out lenders and also allows government to perpetually sink further into debt, you have the recipe for disaster.
The larger the credit bubbles are allowed to get, the more pain there will be when they burst. They, and recessions are akin to earthquakes. Nobody wants them, but the longer it takes for them to happen before pressure is relieved, the more damage they will do.
As for Main Street, it's always about creating incentives to drive desired behavior. People must be given incentives to buy locally. The problem is governments have allowed companies to get too big and efficient, so they can outcompete Main Street on price. This has been an issue ever since Walmart started shipping its manufacturing to China in the 1980s. The only thing that grows unchecked is cancer, so we need anti-trust laws to be enforced at scale, to limit how big corporations can be. We need the tax code to reward labor not capital. We need to eliminate the cap on Social Security contributions and/or increase contributions by 1%. We need a carbon tax. We need a national health care system that rids employers of the cost of paying for everyone's health care, and mandates everyone buys their own individual health coverage plan. We need to reduce income inequality.
So many things can be done to re-engineer the economy to be more robust and healthy, and provide more safety nets, so we don't end up adding what, $5 Trillion to our debt in a year, while watching Main Street get decimated anyway. Failing is part of life. Businesses simply must be allowed to fail like forests need to burn to allow new growth. But the system can't be set up so if you are giant you get saved and if you are small you die.
What we see now is the product of a horribly designed system revealing all its faults. But you know who's at fault? We are. We allowed it to happen. by being more concerned with petty political squabbles and our own lives than actual policy and the greater good of our society.
The larger the credit bubbles are allowed to get, the more pain there will be when they burst. They, and recessions are akin to earthquakes. Nobody wants them, but the longer it takes for them to happen before pressure is relieved, the more damage they will do.
As for Main Street, it's always about creating incentives to drive desired behavior. People must be given incentives to buy locally. The problem is governments have allowed companies to get too big and efficient, so they can outcompete Main Street on price. This has been an issue ever since Walmart started shipping its manufacturing to China in the 1980s. The only thing that grows unchecked is cancer, so we need anti-trust laws to be enforced at scale, to limit how big corporations can be. We need the tax code to reward labor not capital. We need to eliminate the cap on Social Security contributions and/or increase contributions by 1%. We need a carbon tax. We need a national health care system that rids employers of the cost of paying for everyone's health care, and mandates everyone buys their own individual health coverage plan. We need to reduce income inequality.
So many things can be done to re-engineer the economy to be more robust and healthy, and provide more safety nets, so we don't end up adding what, $5 Trillion to our debt in a year, while watching Main Street get decimated anyway. Failing is part of life. Businesses simply must be allowed to fail like forests need to burn to allow new growth. But the system can't be set up so if you are giant you get saved and if you are small you die.
What we see now is the product of a horribly designed system revealing all its faults. But you know who's at fault? We are. We allowed it to happen. by being more concerned with petty political squabbles and our own lives than actual policy and the greater good of our society.