I came across an interesting paragraph in the January, 1887, issue of The Democrat, a British publication, which speaks to our 21st century economy:
The Rothschilds all over Europe are calculated to possess a yearly income of at least six millions. Suppose they spend only one million, laying aside five, what does this really mean? It means that they demand from the producers a tribute of six millions a year, not in goods, but in money; to raise this tribute-money, the producers have to sell six million pounds' worth of their productions in a market in which the Rothschilds purchase only one million's worth, having no requirements for more goods, their spending capacity, viz., their demand: for necessities and luxuries, not having increased so fast as their income. The producers — the people at large — cannot fill the gap by purchasing these remaining five million pounds' worth of goods, much as they need them, because they have to pay the proceeds of their labour as a tribute to the Rothschilds to the tune of £6,000,000 a year. Here, then, is the solution of the great problem, why goods are not saleable, why labour can find no employment, though the greatest need for goods exists.
It is attributed to Michael Flurscheim, a manufacturer in the Grand Duchy of Baden.
America's FIRE sector -- Finance, Insurance, Real Estate -- continues to harvest huge amounts of the production of American workers who are fussy enough to want a place to live. They don't have sufficient cash to buy the land and structure outright, and 15-year mortgages have given way to 30-year mortgages, fixed rates to adjustable rates, 20% downpayments to 10% and 5% and less -- with private mortgage insurance -- and $8,000 tax credits often are the equity in a newly purchased home. And the top few hundred employees of each behemoth pay themselves and each other awesomely high bonuses, on top of salaries which would alone place them in the top 1% of our income spectrum. Our best and brightest students are drawn, not to medicine, or scientific research, or engineering, or production management, or any of a number of fields in which they could make a positive impact on the lives of their fellow human beings (and be comfortably compensated with opportunities for leaving their children well-situated as well), but into Finance and Consulting, where the goal is to suck the vitality out of productive companies and out of wage-earning individuals.
The alternative? It is remarkably simple. So simple that "smart" people scoff at it. It is also wise, and just, and efficient, and conducive to solving many of our most pressing -- and supposedly intractable -- social, economic, environmental and justice problems.
Comments