tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post1738065154264617756..comments2024-03-29T04:06:37.402-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Complacency RisingStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-50778824824410594442017-03-03T08:19:00.990-08:002017-03-03T08:19:00.990-08:00Something that is not discussed often or effective...Something that is not discussed often or effectively about "complacency" is how today's corporate non-compete agreements create complacency and economic sclerosis. This should be covered. It creates a legal framework for indentured servitude. I have a client who wants to create a new, innovative company, but he cannot because his non-compete bars from an entire INDUSTRY. Ridiculous.Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18222603717128565302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-48585480726361939012017-03-03T06:50:31.764-08:002017-03-03T06:50:31.764-08:00I'm not sure if there's a coherent argumen...I'm not sure if there's a coherent argument here, but there certainly are innumerable changes that have happened in the last 50 years, and much of that has enabled the concentrations of wealth and affluence to be accumulated in the hands of a few. And the last time this happened was the 1920s and when markets failed, FDR basically took dictatorial power back into the hands of government to redistribute the wealth that exists into the masses who were destitute, and we created social security that ended absolute poverty of the elderly, and also had up to a 90% top marginal tax rate, which slowly was reversed over the decades.<br /><br />And after the high inflation of the 1970s, we enabled an exponential increase in governmental debt that started serious under Reagan, and has progressed almost without halt, except for attempts to spike the markets with cheap debt and low regulations, like Clinton's "Its the economy stupid" that finally reversed Glass-Steagall and enabled banks to gamble with other people's money while still keeping bailout protections so the government is responsible when banks make bad bets.<br /><br />So my overarching narrative says we've lived in an era of debt (or unlimited credit) of the last 36 some years, basically always a variation of Reagan's Trickle down economics, and the Democrats happily followed the game since every increase in income of the middle class and wealthy enabled more tax revenue to pay for their ever expanding social programs.<br /><br />And it is apparent that this exponential increase of debt at all levels of society has been enabled by globalization, and I've heard it claimed that globalization itself is deflationary, in the sense that wealth nations gain instant access to wider cheap natural sources, and cheap foreign labor that made more material abundance temporarily available to a wider number of citizens of any income.<br /><br />And the trick comes for us that the US dollar is the global currency of trade, and everyone wants dollar, and so we literally MUST find ways to put more currency into circulation, while all new money exists as either new debt, some of which increases by appreciating property and asset values. So we have created "GNP growth" by increasing debt faster than anything else, and new debt always requires new future income to pay all the interest. And now we're so desperate to create new debt that interest rates are now made artificially low. And so we're at the end of a terrible cycle that can only end up with wide scale defaults as soon as economic growth can't be maintained.<br /><br />So perhaps we are "complacent", but it doesn't seem consistent with the picture of our debt situation, and more it seems like the perspective of the whip master who is afraid his investments are going to decline unless we can find another way to increase GNP while people are seeing their own circumstances as declining and becoming more intractable. So the people on top are willing to make huge risks with other people's money, and we feel compelled to agree, because how else will we ever retire?<br /><br />And it does seem like there's a gender war going on, with males more in the Republican party, and females in the Democratic party, and yet I'm not convinced that is central. Its just two sides both trying to make an intractable economic system keep working one more year.<br /><br />And I wonder where the real risks lie - does it lie in the ability to try to produce 20% one-time fossil fuels in the next decade as the last, or does it exist in the ability to try to figure out how to not make the future always bigger than the past, to keep everyone willing to stay in the rat race?<br /><br />I think the question isn't "Should we take risks?" but "What risks offer credible hope for civilization in 50 years?" Markets are taking risks now for maximizing returns now, and assuming the future will take care of itself. That's how we got here, and its also how we will fail in the end.<br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.com