Scots Taffer on 21/9/2011 at 03:40

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I was going to post this in the other thread but that one has started to sink under the weight of fucktardery in it so I'll contribute here instead (other thread being "Paging RBJ"), but the above is kind of thing I've been left pondering after reading a troubling series of articles in recent days.

(http://abc.com.au/news/2011-09-21/imf-warning-on-euro-debt-crisis/2908910) IMF issue global recession warning, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14975745) Obama's unveils deficit plan to Republican uproar and (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14981718) Italy's sovereignty is downgraded.

The reactions to all of these issues will obviously cause political gyrations and further unrest in our turbulent global economy, but the issue that's now becoming startlingly clear as Obama's approval ratings plummet through the floor is not that government needs to take the right action and quickly, but that it is understood and supported by the people.

In my OP in the other thread I posed some variations on this theme:



In a way this comes back to the level of complexity present in our systems and while I agree with RBJ that this doesn't mean our systems should be simplified, I think it does mean that explanations of those systems and their transparency needs to be brought down a level otherwise we're doomed to failure.

Whether you agree that Obama's programme is going to have a long-term positive impact on the economy, the challenge is obviously going to be making the public realise it's a good thing (and hence they shouldn't boot him out) and how it might look in two years if we start down a path and then double-back one administration change later.

The same issue faces us in the Eurozone - the austerity measures of Greece and Italy are causing consternation in the public and this may very well hamper the recovery efforts. But we again swing around to asking the question: how sustainable are those efforts in isolation if everywhere else is doing its own thing and causing reverbrations through the markets?

I've seen a few articles where the idea of a centralised European monetary policy has been thrashed around before being quietly taken down a dark alley way and put out of its misery with a silenced pfft pfft - which takes us back to a bigger picture question of how this horribly tangled and interconnected web of economic thought and government measures can be explained in such a way that it provides the everyman with a view of an economic "light at the end of the tunnel" so that they can commit to it.

If we don't, then surely it's all a waste of time and the system is going to crumble further until Muz's suggestion of a global socalism starts to look like a reasonable solution...

Edit: maybe all I'm really saying is how do we make macro-economic policy meaningful in a micro-economic context (does micro-economics bring in sociodemographics??) ... but I'm no economic theorist and that's way outside my comfort zone to consider, so just pretend I didn't say that if it didn't make sense.

Edit edit: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14934430) Another sobering read of the Eurozone crisis

Edit edit edit: I've spent all day reading articles on Eurozone and US deficit and my brain is ready to explode, then just to mix it up I went trawling the different schools of economic thought on Wikipedia, even the titles of which read like pitchfork music genres :(

heywood on 21/9/2011 at 23:38

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What is Obama's programme? If you asked most people, they couldn't tell you what it is because he hasn't articulated it. My impression is that his economic policy has been reactive, not proactive. If you look at the collection of tactical positions he's taken in various skirmishes with Republicans, you can find some patterns. But that's far from establishing and articulating a set of principles and long term economic strategy for people to get behind.

The Republicans are no better. And the tea party scared off the independents that a Republican candidate would need to beat Obama. And the American electorate prefers divided government. So I still think Obama's re-election is guaranteed unless there is a major scandal or a Republican white knight appears out of nowhere.

Muzman on 22/9/2011 at 01:03

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I might be missing something important in this conversation thread somewheres, but aren't franchises counted as small businesses in those stats? You could be working for a huge chain and be counted as a small business employee. Accurate perhaps, but seems potentially misleading to the average punter particulalrly on this issue.
Assuming that's the case, a lot of 'megacorporations' suddenly have a huge influence on small business at only one step removed. This is to say nothing of all the small businesses who essentially exist to contract to large corporations.

CCCToad on 22/9/2011 at 04:07

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I don't know if that's true, potentially worth looking up though. I don't necessarily seem small "contract" businesses as a bad thing though because the are still businesses where the wealth accumulates at a middle to lower-upper class level and is somewhat more recirculated into the economy than corporate cash is.




Its all well and good to call for more internet education, but does anyone have any practical approach to make it happen? Since public ignorance about financial systems and laws can be beneficial to the moguls (ie, fraudulent BoA foreclosures) I don't foresee anyone in a position of power pushing for more education about this issue.

Scots Taffer on 22/9/2011 at 04:27

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Wasn't that basically my entire point? It's very hard to do so but we need to find a way to do so.

I'm happy to hear the pros and cons of his programme debated, but I thought it was relatively straightforward that the two main thrusts of it were:
a) economic stimulus to create spending to create jobs
b) increasing taxes where it counts to reduce the increased deficit as per a)