For a while now I've been wondering just what has gone wrong and it is clear (as mud) that the criminals that manipulated the economy into last years collapse were just another set of jokers in the deck, deluded by the illusion of capitalist superiority.
Capitalism states that wealth comes from the investment of money. Money begets more money. Ask any banker if this simple minded truism is valid and he'll hem and haw. Ask him for a loan and he wants his pound of flesh along with every penny he lends you.
Money is supposed to represent our productivity. One unit of measure is our Gross Domestic Product. Madman Junior (my son) claimed that the US would have a negative GDP unless China (who we have an egregious trade balance with) invests in our economy. If China should think this is a bad investment and pull out of trade with us our economy would fail.
My argument to him was our economy is comprised of buying and selling the crap China exports. We aren't producing anything. There fore if China wants to continue to produce they might want to continue to give us the money to buy their production.
Or we could just say no.
This isn't a rant about protectionism. We don't need protectionist trade policies to control our economy. We need to look carefully at who is controlling our economy and where the money goes. Just like in CSI. Follow the money.
The investment community has manipulated the average relative wage and the inflation index for many years. (The inflation index shows signs of manipulation since the early 1980's). OK this is an opinion but I think I can prove it. More to follow on that front. I feel that my relative income growth has not kept up with either my value to the workforce or the GDP.
The number crunchers have taken away the sense of what money is> that is the value of work.
In 1979 my take home was 1200 a month.
today my take home is 4900 a month (roughly).
According to the economics site www.measuringworth.com the measure of my productivity (my wages) has shown a 38% growth in the last 30 years measured against the CPI (or the value of what I spend my money on).
In 1979, $4,903.00 from 2008 is worth:
| $1,652.60 | using the Consumer Price Index | |
| $1,977.82 | using the GDP deflator | |
| $1,476.96 | using the value of consumer bundle | |
| $1,731.24 | using the unskilled wage | |
| $1,176.82 | using the nominal GDP per capita | |
| $869.89 | using the relative share of GDP |
Against the nomimal productivity of everyone else I've lost ground (Nominal GDP).
But most telling is the relative share of the GDP. There I've lost 30% of my worth. This means someone else has taken my money. And yours. This is a conspiracy theory, but not a wild one. Maybe they're just arrogant.
We shouldn't be stupid.
