Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think about them

Re:Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think... by eli_gottlieb on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @12:56PM (#10501220)

I think you're (not deliberately) beating around the bush. The problem is not that we're only now becoming clever or wise enough to implement demand-driving economic policies in a time of secular demand shortages, but that, for decades now, the very zero-sum and negative-sum games we so deplore (exploitation of the weak, exploitation of the public purse, freeriding on the public purse, rentiering of all kinds) have been treated as the intended goal of economic policy.

Starting in the 1970s, Western societies' economic planners set out to hold inflation down, at all costs, including high unemployment. They did this because they were confronted with stagflation, oil crises, labor militancy, and a crisis of corporate profitability, and they naively believed that deflationary depressions were a solved problem.

They succeeded, and today's economy is their program of governance gone horribly right.

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Re:Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think... by clavalle on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @03:08PM (#10502203)

Time to reevaluate the goals, then, eh?

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Re:Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think... by laotzu on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @03:28PM (#10502383)

The explicit goals of our sociopolitical economy as stated in the 1913 Federal Reserve Act are (paraphrased) as follows:

1. Maximum employment 2. Stable prices 3. Moderate interest rates

I'd say all of these should be reevaluated, most importantly #'s 1 and 2.

Instead of "putting country X back to work" we should consider the current state of automative abundance and the basic economic principle of "too many cooks in the kitchen". So instead of maximum employment, maybe we should think about minimum employment?

#2 should also be reconsidered in light of exponential growth of our technology and the resulting ephemeralization. We are producing goods and services better, faster, and cheaper at exponential rates. So prices should tend to reflect this reality, and diminish, not stay the same.

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Re:Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @10:14PM (#10504362)

"How can we provide the maximum quality of life to everyone with the minimum amount of jobs? And what level of resources can we commit to automating away the rest of jobs in this century?"

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