Economic Growth

I have read that the growth that has fueled the economy we have today may be coming to an end. These bloggers/authors all seem to be suggesting that we need to accept that and act accordingly. The focus now must be on sustainability, not growth.

I read more from Thomas Friedman, the author of the "World is Flat". He also wrote "That Used to Be Us"  along with Michael Mandelbaum, who is a leading foreign policy thinker. This book was more of a wake up call and a bit less optimistic than The "World is Flat".  They describe four challenges that we face: 

1. globalization
2. the revolution in information technology
3. the nation’s chronic deficits
4. our pattern of excessive energy consumption. 

While they do offer solutions, with the current political climate, it is difficult to believe the solutions will be implemented.

The 2012 election is very much about restoring the American economy but it is hard to see that happening regardless of the outcome. Friedman and Mandelbaum do believe that the recovery of American greatness is within reach. They show how America’s history, offers a formula for prosperity that will enable us to cope successfully with the challenges we face. 


 
Building on the success of his book, "Does IT Matter?" Nicholas Carr wrote "The Big Switch. " This looks at how a new computer revolution is reshaping business, society, and culture.

Another book with a similar theme, "The Third Industrial Revolution, " author Jeremy Rifkin discusses how internet technology and renewable energy will merge to create a powerful “Third Industrial Revolution.”  He paints a picture where hundreds of millions of people produce their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories, and share it with each other in an “energy internet,” just like we now create and share information online.  He believes it will create thousands of businesses, millions of jobs, and bring us a new paradigm of human relationships. This change will facilitate a move from hierarchical to lateral power and will impact the way we conduct commerce, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life.

 
Michael Lewis in "Boomerang"  takes on topics like European sovereign debt and the International Monetary Fund,  making them comprehensible and fascinating. He gives us a guided tour through some of the differing places hard hit by the fiscal crisis of 2008, like Greece, Iceland and Ireland. He suggests how different people for very different reasons made grave economic errors with the cheap credit available.  He is literally an economic disaster tourist as he travels to these countries to understand what went wrong.  Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted money for everyone with little work.  The Germans wanted to be even more German and the Irish wanted to stop being Irish. He also includes California and Washington, DC in his financial tourism.   Lewis also wrote, "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" which was a bestselling 2010 book.

 
In "The Tyranny of Dead Ideas" by Matt Miller suggests that there are 6 dead ideas.  

1) each generation can expect a rising standard of living  

2) free trade is always good  

3) employer-provided healthcare benefits are the only way 

4) tax rates are too high  

5) local school financing is good and 

6) free market outcomes are just and fair.  

The author contends only top business executives can spearhead new ideas since power-driven politicians are incapable of such leadership. He suggests that the skill and speed with which people cope will be the key to success and those slow to adapt will be punished faster and more harshly.


And finally, I read "Republic Lost" by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. His focus was on what is wrong with the political system, in an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government. With recent changes in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, our trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.
His book describes how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left, Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He reveals the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that the average reader can understand. He ultimately calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.  While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it.

 

 

Great Conversations

My goal for this blog has always been to try to reframe ideas so that my reader might see a new way to proceed out of the quagmire where we often seem to be stuck. To gain inspiration, I have been reading a lot of books written in the last couple years. And I plan to continue that trend. But with a recent gift of a new Kindle, it has made it easier for me to also read the classics so I joined an online group called  Great Conversations.

Right now, we are reading William James and that was a great place to start as I have some history reading James. I have particularly enjoyed his writing on the topic of habits. We all make New Year's resolutions to change our "bad habits" and exercise more, eat better, or strive to be more forgiving and kind.  We usually think of changing our way at the local level. And in many cases, we do not undertake the change at all because old habits are hard to break.

Nationally, as Bill McClellan, a journalist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, pointed out, we have become like a dysfunctional marriage. We are more interested in proving the other party is wrong than in really solving any of our problems. And a divorce might be necessary for the sake of the kids, but it is virtually impossible. So our best bet may be to go to counseling and see if we can change our bad habits.

One of our bad habits involves throwing around economic terms that no one really understands, capitalism, socialism, free markets, or communism. It is hard to discuss new ideas unless you have the language to do so. We have images associated with these words that scarcely reflect the reality of what those terms mean in terms of our own economic realities. I challenge us to take each sector of our economy and examine what part the government plays and how things really work. Then perhaps we can come up with new words. Agriculture in America is hardly an example of capitalism or free markets at work nor is it truly socialism. Food is our most key and elemental need. When we do see free markets at work, i.e. the movement to buy organic, we still see a dangerous mix of government regulation and profiteering.

We need to expand our language to describe new models and we need to create new habits when discussing and governing. If we don't, we will forever be stuck in the past and some group/country/sector or movement that is able to form a new paradigm will pass us by.

I think there are the limits on the Occupy Wall Street protestors ability to affect lasting change. They do not have the ability to articulate a different vision than their current reality and they are following in the footsteps of all the other talking heads and using the habit of anger instead of building a new way of approaching politics.

 

The art of being wise is
the art of knowing
what to overlook.

William James
Principles of Psychology