If the global economy were any less rational, it could only be on a purely theoretical basis. “Economic unrealism” is the default scenario for reporting and economic news. The cost of living is the inscription on the tombstone.
It even sounds like a political ideology. It’s easy to picture a herd of privileged morons fighting back against reality in every possible form. That would be normal. The big problem is that it’s supposedly qualified people who are talking like this idiotic economy has a future. It doesn’t.
Consider this bonnie-bouncing perspective:
Several years ago everybody was talking about how brilliant they were and how they were doing well and making great money. These same people turned around and cranked up prices into hyperdrive overnight. They were under no economic pressure whatsoever.
It had nothing to do with interest rates and still doesn’t. A few basis points one way or another don’t make any difference at all. If you’re making billions of dollars and you suddenly have to pay another few dollars per year, so what?
The move from ridiculously low interest rates to almost median rates was treated like a disaster. Any fool can borrow at 1% and lend at credit card rates to make money. That was the big problem.
As a matter of fact, a slight increase in cost can be quite handy when you want to do a few favors for your little friends in the terrarium. You can write off almost anything, particularly debt. You do not have to increase the price of everything to insane levels on principle.
3 years later all these heroic billionaires are fighting back supported by a sort of cretinous cabal of wannabe financial writers, pseudo-economists, and other trash from the -Z-movie props department. Now you can read about how brilliant they are and how they are doing well and making great money.
Meanwhile, the entire global economy has basically died and everybody else has gone broke. If you were a first-year accountancy student you’d be lynched for even suggesting such numbers were plausible. As an economist, lynching would be considered much too good for you, with good reason.
You can read about the drivel every day. The big news is how thoroughly entrenched this garbage has become in mainstream economics. Bloomberg has an article discussing the many horrors of the Chinese economy.
Growth is projected to be only 5%.
Prices, notably consumer prices, are going down.
It’s called “deflation”. You should all join monasteries right now to avoid the terrible effects of affordability in your economy.
I have nothing against Bloomberg. This particular article is well worth reading. Bloomberg was one of the few financial news sources that dared to tell things the way they were in 2008. The problem is that this isn’t 2008, and the dead hand and head of old-style economics can be heard creaking in the background.
To put this in perspective, American growth is supposed to be brilliant at slightly under three percent. Prices are still horrific and even Donald and Gollum can’t pretend to be able to fix them.
Now the self-inflicted bullet in the brain for this kind of economics:
Growth is measured by prices not economic realities.
That’s 100% wrong. Cost increases are the exact opposite of productivity by definition. Add cumulative cost increases and you can’t even pretend to be making money.
China’s problems are now what America wants and desperately needs. Prices must come down to some credible level.
Doesn’t look like capitalism is winning the argument, does it?
You can see how farcical this is. China isn’t burying itself under a great wall of illiterate babble. China isn’t attacking its trade partners left right and center. All China has to do is allow America to keep machine gunning itself in the foot.
America is positioning itself as the big disruptive force in a world which has had quite enough disruption in recent years thanks to American politics. Making a fool out of itself on every single possible economic issue doesn’t help.
Economic unrealism doesn’t help much either. There is absolutely no point in pretending that the domestic economies are doing anything but shriveling up and dying. Quality of life is a very bad joke. People can’t really afford anything. How is this good or even barely credible economics?
Tell me O Mighty Economic Shop Fittings
What sort of future do you anticipate from this load of statistical garbage?
Will you and your no doubt pleasantly fecal descendants be frolicking in the fields?
Nobody ever actually believed any of this rubbish.
Stop saying it’s good when it so very obviously isn’t.
The growth economy is over.
You’ll have to learn a new party trick.
Like, now.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
