By Farid Khavari
How could anybody expect full-employment, economic growth, a stable and vibrant economy, low-cost of living, cheap energy, declining poverty, growing wealth, affordable and accessible healthcare, home-ownership, innovation, research and development, a golden age for the retirees, sustainable environment, prosperity, economic security, and a better future, when governments promote destructive activities that would cause just the opposite of all that is desired?!
Governments and multinational corporations fleece and rob people by charging all kinds of fees, raise funds by issuing costly traffic citations, collect property taxes, issue bonds for new projects, build careers based on corruption, outsource jobs to maximize profits, and implement inept policies without understanding the consequences such as balancing the budget by cuts and layoffs, implement restrictive economic policies, impose austerity measures, have unqualified and incompetent people in political offices, and hold elections tainted with corruption. Politicians serve the financiers of their elections rather than the people, load students with unending and backbreaking debts, foreclose on homes, do nothing to avoid bankruptcies, neglect taking advantage of implementing productivity to cut cost, just to mention some of many shortcomings and problems we are all facing.
On the other hand, when new jobs are created, they are mostly subsidized jobs, which add to the social cost. If the budget is balanced by cuts and layoffs, no real gains are made because the results still ends up in increased social costs--perhaps even higher than the savings derived from such measure. How could anyone achieve something positive by implementing austerity measures other than destroying whatever is left?
Political discussions that dwell about the past may help at best if these issues are taught at colleges in political seminars and history classes. What can help an economy are solid plans that should be subject of debates, forums, interviews, and discussions during a political campaign. Similarly, piecemeal solutions that cover the interests of a specific group by neglecting the remaining groups of people do not resolve any issue effectively. Even if a piecemeal should succeed in a political arena using massive media advertising manipulating voters, the rest of the problem will still continue to exist. The most prudent approach would be a total solution of the problem, covering all interest groups and people.
The reason why we are suffering economic decline is because of these moronic activities as well as lack of understanding of the involved issues. Even worse is the lack of realization that these measures to generate funds the easy way are all short-sighted and provide no worthy solutions. In fact they compound and extend the problems. All these are nothing else other than the signs of intellectual fatigue, which is costing us left and right reflected in social costs of all kinds and in economic decline.
Have we all become so stupid, ignorant, and insane, or we do not care about us, our children and our future any longer?
We need to get away from our idling intellectual fatigue by doing just the opposite of everything we have been thus far .
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