Debt created the appearance of prosperity. We should not try to restore that fake, unsustainable "growth" which brought us the current crisis (as had been announced for a long time by a few lonely voices); we need to focus on re-creating real prosperity, and that means the policies that were proven to work in the second half of the 20th centuries: strong regulation of banks and labor markets, with actual enforcement, wages following productivity growth, and public investment in education, healthcare and social safety nets. Add to this today a drive to invest in a new energy infrastructure, and a construction sector bailout focused on refurbishing existing buildings to improve energy efficiency, and you get a comprehensive package that will actually work.
Say it again now, inequality is inefficient.
For the better part of the last 40 years, we've been feed this line that wages must be suppressed or the economy will shrink, but it was all bullshit. The deadweight loss models used by the Right to brand living wages as anti-social are nothing less than a projection of the anti-social tendencies of neo-liberals onto their real, and imagined, enemies.
It's the Anglo Disease at work.
BTW, Jerome, did you by chance get my email? And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Given that China just signed off on a 4 Trillion Yuan (586 Billion USD) stimilus package, the largest ever peacetime cash infusion by a government relative to GDP, haven't the Chinese actually done what Mr. Wolf has suggested? And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Say it again now, inequality is inefficient
It is.
But more to the point, returns to rentiers are inefficient, and my thesis is that returns to rentiers are no longer necessary.
A "Co-operative Capitalism" is capable of out-competing conventional Capitalism because it may operate without returns to rentiers either as shareholders or bank depositors.
The replacement will be direct "Peer to Peer" investment in future production/use value of productive assets and direct "Peer to Peer" credit with shared costs and defaults.
Ethical is Optimal. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
It was in the junk mail. I just sent a response.
Let me think about it.
I like the simple message:
Inequality is inefficent.
That will raise some eyebrows, and get people to engage you whether they agree or disagree. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
