#HologramThread
People were really into classical physics before quantum physics came along. However, quantum physics is weird: It says things about our existence that are hard to reconcile with our intuition.

What if I told you the 21st Century Economy is counterintuitive, too?

Our brains have a function that thinks about resource management. This is there so we can survive. Don't feel special: Even squirrels and bees have this function. "Do I have enough food for the winter?" is part of that. It is instinctive. It is part of our core operating system.

When people talk about a balanced budget, they are using this instinct. "There are not infinite resources. Therefore, we must conserve enough for tomorrow. I should not spend more than I have." Intuitively, this makes complete sense. Don't use credit cards unless you must ...

But for an economy writ large, this is untrue. Just as Newton's laws get a bit fuzzy when we talk neutron stars or black holes, so too does this intuition betray us in the 21st Century. The first problem is that the resources you need to survive are not scarce in the modern era.

Don't believe me? Do you have a larder?

We shop when we get low on food. In the US, most folks have access to fresh meats, vegetables, baked goods, etc., etc. on a daily basis. Stocking up has become so weird for us that the whole supply chain freaked out when COVID came along.

And yet, until recently, for the entire history of the human race, this wasn't true. You had to store food. People smoked and salted and canned things. I remember my mom making pickles every year when I was young. Last year, she made her first batch in 20 years as a "novelty."

Each family had to have enough food stored for winter. You had to make space for it and you had to spend the money for it and you had to maintain a good grasp of what was in there through the fall and winter months.

Pre-COVID, my adult kids stopped at a grocery store every day.

They didn't stock anything. They 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 had to do this kind of personal inventory. And this is just one way the 21st Century economy shows us that "market scarcity" is a hilarious farce. By now, you have all seen the dairy farmers dumping truckloads of milk, right?

The 21st Century economy runs like a video game. We can create money anywhere we want. People spend it on what they need and desire. It leaves the economy when we put it into a savings account or have it taxed away. It literally blinks in and out of existence as needed.

Who wants to go on TV and tell everyone that the economy is literally an MMO videogame?

No one does this because the intuition of millions (maybe billions) of people would be to simply laugh at them. They would say that's the dumbest thing they've ever heard.

It's true anyway.

The reason people yelling "socialism" or "capitalism" at each other are quaint relics is that neither of them is actually right.

(Magnanimously, you could find a way to say they are "both right" if you thought making that argument would trigger fewer ego defenses ...)

And so the money printers have gone from BRRRRR to ZEEEEE and yet ... gas is cheaper than it has been in ages. Milk is getting thrown away. The inflation monster that your intuition tells you should put us into Weimar Republic status ... doesn't seem to be showing up?

The Golden Age of Trickle Down wasn't the 1980's. It was the 1800's. It was Henry Ford. The old business barons that paid more to their workers to spark the economy were the Old Understanding from when things were scarce. The 1986 tax reform was the last time that would work.

If the Laffer Curve can't be burned and buried after the 2017 Stock Buyback Act ... er, I mean the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (much respect to Orwell), then I'm not sure how else to convince you that times have changed.

All of this is to say something even more radical.

You should have a Fed Account. We should create money for you based on the poverty line. Your basic needs as a human should be covered by a #BasicIncome. We can create the money from thin air to let you pay rent, shop for groceries, and live a decent life. For literally everyone.

You would be able to do whatever work you can find for extra money. Whatever YOU find meaningful.

Teaching? You won't go hungry.

Nursing? You can pay your mortgage.

Dirt bike racing? You can still afford college.

You could spend your whole life making yarn doilies for ETSY.

"Those are utopian dreams! People would blah blah blah blah blah ..."

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the ZEEEEE of the money printers.

~ Holo