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Some thought I had this morning. I went to a shitty little state college from 76-80. I was a business major because what else was I going to be. The first semester I had Principles of Economics 1 (macroeconomics).
The professor was a disciple of the Chicago school, Milton Friedman was his god. As it was taught, it made perfect sense, there were charts and graphs, super fertile flower pots, incompetent governments, and derision for anyone who thought differently.
It made sense and I bought into it. I graduated in 1980 into a world in recession, Americans being held hostage, few opportunities, and in the election, there was a cool uncle telling us that it could be fixed if our country just asserted itself more forcefully.
Fuck the Arabs, fuck the Persians, fuck the Muslims, fuck the Russians, fuck the communists. As someone who grew up in a naval officer's family, it tied everything together. But things didn't make sense in the real world.
The auto and steel industries were getting destroyed by Europe and Japan. Communists and socialists were taking over in multiple areas of our own hemisphere as well as in Asia. The middle east was growing in importance.
In Western Pennsylvania where I lived, unemployment was high, people were moving away in droves, religious leaders were protesting in front of CEO's homes, food banks were springing up, there was a feeling of hopelessness. How was this possible in a free market economy?
Back then, I read the paper religiously, including the business section. I would read quotes from corporate leaders, talking about building and losing market share, stockholder equity, and unfair competition. The Japanese and Germans were dumping. Help us out federal government.
How is the needed or wanted in a free market economy? What I didn't read were comments about improving the products or the products at all. The heads of the giant companies had no interest in the products they made. It was all about the finances.
Cutting costs, especially in labor costs were all they cared about. and, as Billy Joel sang, the union people crawled away. But I had a job, few responsibilities, lots of beer so I ignored it all. outlet.
The late 80s came, the economy sort of boomed, lots of BMWs driving around, McMansions sprung up all over the place, so life was good. The soviet union fell, China and Asia started making our junk, the air was cleaner, you could fish in the Allegheny (so who needs steel mills).
Life was good, just as it should be in a free market economy. But the food banks were still there, there were homeless people under the bridges, and I was still living pretty much paycheck to paycheck. I still read the paper, including the business section.
The economy was only expressed as to how the Dow was doing. Vulture Capitalist became the free market heroes, buy it, strip it, sell it. Let the next owner default on the debt. Downsize became the name of the game. Send the jobs overseas, save 10% even with the shipping.
Build up the stock price, build up the C levels bonuses, pass on any possible costs to the business-friendly government to make things look better. Avoid taxes, when the deficits grow, blame it on the money spent on the growing number of poor people.
They don't vote anyway, so who cares. The internet is allowing them to get rid of lots of jobs and brick and mortar locations. No big deal, the god of efficiency will take care of them.
Then we discovered that loaning money to people to buy homes they couldn't afford was a great idea. Construction would boom, and enough would pay that it would work out, especially if we packaged the loans together and sold them in pieces the risk would be spread wide enough.
What could go wrong? Well, we found out in 2007. But as usual, the free market economy stepped up and fixed it. The government bailed out the banks, the CEOs got paid, the people got screwed, but the dow started climbing. What could go wrong?
The government's bills came due. How to pay them, take it from the poor people, they can't do anything about it. Bring on the tea party. Let's get back to small government. And in 2012 let's try and elect a vulture capitalist to fix things.
Even if he loses, the inevitable breakdown can just be blamed on the black guy. In the meantime, the most free-market group in the world, the mafia succeeded in taking over Russia, learned the techniques needed to accomplish it on a large scale.
They looked at the biggest pot of money in the world and said: "yes please". The den of sociopaths known as the republican party was ripe for the picking, a little blackmail, a little bribery, and a lot of wanting the same things was a marriage made in heaven. And here we are.
We have a government teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, run by people who not only don't have any competence, they don't have any interest. We have a population who hate each other enough that they won't even pay attention to the people who are actually screwing them.
We have a worldwide disaster happening and no cohesive way to try and manage it. Peaceful, thoughtful people) are buying guns to protect themselves, and we are all hiding out in our homes, going broke.
I'm sorry this is so long. It just kept coming.
I'm sorry this is so long. It just kept coming.
One of my twitter friends just posted a tweet that seems like an after" for this thread. The ramifications of our current situation will be widespread. In ways we can't imagine yet. https://twitter.com/tommythefamily/status/1245704613023670273
