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The Economy [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-27
According to the pundits the major reason for the election loss was the economy. People voted with their wallets in mind, more concerned over the price of eggs and gas over other issues. This despite the truth that it was statistically and factually the most successful and powerful economy worldwide. Democrats failed to effectively communicate the truth about the current economy and the threats Trump would bring to the economy in the future. Why is it that Republicans are trusted to better handle the economy despite the historical statistics that the economy always does better under Democrats[1]?
How can Democrats change that perception? Democrats must be able to easily define the economy in the most digestible way possible for the majority of Americans. Once defined, present economic policies that support the growth of the economy and benefit the most Americans possible to win the economic battleground.
I am not an economist; I don’t have any degrees; I am just older and speak through my lay experiences and education on my belief about the economy. To me the basic economic function is buying and selling, money moving from one hand to another. The economy is nothing more than a measure of how much money is moving through it and how many hands are touching it. Everything else is just a factor that affects the economy. The more money moving through it and the more people it touches the better the economy is, the less the worse the economy is. This is why they say that a robust middle class is the economic engine for growth in any economy[2]. Contrary factors that take money out of the mainstream are damaging to an economy. This would include millionaires and billionaires, crypto currencies, monopolies and underground/black economies (these are the economies of criminal activities such a narcotics trafficking). These factors concentrate monies that are no longer shared in the mainstream economy, they are like economic tumors taking resources from the economic body that could result in the death of the economy.
Who would spend more money, a hundred people with $100,000 each or a single millionaire? More financial transactions would be done with more people, and more hands touching the money make for a stronger economy. Which is better for the economy, one hundred people buying a home or one millionaire buying one or two expensive homes? Crypto currencies were developed to hide financial transactions and money. Large amounts of funds are taken out of the mainstream economy and hidden touching only the hands that hid it and is a detriment to the economy. Criminal enterprises enjoy using crypto currencies because they can move large amounts of funds with no accountability or participation in the general economy. What we see by these examples is when you limit the participation in an economy you weaken an economy.
Other factors that affect an economy include monopolies and corporate conglomerates. They limit competition and institute efficiencies. A Walmart moves into an area and all the little mom and pop shops end up failing because they can’t compete with the amount of products and services the corporate conglomerate offers. The small shops can’t offer the same amount of hours. We can all appreciate the variety of products the conglomerates offer but we must also acknowledge the dangers they present to us.
Robots and artificial intelligence increase corporate efficiencies, but they are not participants in the economy. They do not buy products or spend money. They do not earn a paycheck, or buy a home or furnishings, or food. They do not pay taxes or vote. Use of these efficiencies actually eliminate the jobs of people who would be participants in the economy, but because these measures continue to concentrate monies into the coiffures of millionaires/billionaires, monopolies, corporations and conglomerates they will continue to be used.
Capitalism is the economic system under which the US operates, it is private ownership of the means of production as opposed to a government owned means of production. What it means is that you as a private citizen/producer have the right to produce a product and sell it for profit. This is where we have to acknowledge my economic theory of money changing hands and more money touching more hands makes for a better stronger economy. Capitalism has also been described as survival of the fittest and dog eat dog. If we accept the analogy of capitalism to biological systems then we also have to accept that there has be balance or else if the predators eat up all the prey and then they die of starvation. Capitalism is also tied to consumerism and so it is also tied to the numbers in an economy, and when you subtract ten million consumers through deportation from and economy what can you expect to happen to that system?
A multipronged attack on the Republican economic plan is what is needed. The following issues seem ripe to be attacked.
One of the budget items that always gets passed is a pay raise for your government service representatives[3], which insures they get paid even in the event of a government shutdown. What other industry allows people to get paid if they shut down? Democrats should push for regulations that bar representatives from being paid if they vote to shut down the government, because they are robbing US citizens by getting paid for doing nothing. No welfare for government representatives might be a good message. Republicans are only interested in serving themselves or their millionaire/billionaire donors. If the Republican clamor for tax cuts, should they not also be calling for the reduction in the salaries and compensations the Senators and representatives are receiving? The majority of your congressional representatives are millionaires or very wealthy especially when compared to the constituency they propose to represent[4], the newer members perhaps less but they are clamoring for that wealth, and politics are seen as that route to that goal.
Trickle-down economics is the economic strangulation of the working class. Trickle-down economics is best illustrated through the billionaire class with multimillion-dollar salaries with ten-million-dollar bonuses while a few workers in some cases get a three percent raise of their meager salaries. Trickle down economics only reinforces a class-based society in the United States and only serves to maintain the power structure of the rich and ignores the economic power of the working/middle class consumer base.
I would define millionaires and billionaires as economic tumors within an economy. They can be benign or malignant but either way their growth will kill the host. They are a large economic force that occupies a large area in the body of the economy they exist in. They can be benign in just their continued goal of growth that overwhelms any local competition or regulation; or they can be malignant in the destruction of any competition or regulation that opposes them. Their outsized influence in both political and economic circles can circumvent the direction of the goals of a government from the good of the people and the nation to match the goals of the billionaire. What are the obligations of the government when a billionaire begin announcing or trying to influence foreign policy and relations? Is the billionaire a normal citizen subject to existing laws; or is the government invested in protecting and supporting its cash cow?
Artificial Intelligence, robots, streamlined supply chains, all part of the efficiencies in industries and touted as the reason for the growth in the economy. I would say just the opposite is true, robots and AI do not participate in the economy, they don’t buy anything, they don’t spend money so they don’t participate in the economy. They do bring greater wealth to those industries that utilize them. AI is also the vehicle that most doomsday movies utilize where human controls are circumvented and automated controls come into effect such as the automated launch of a nuclear salvo, or the assassination of a world leader that results in a world war.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bit coin and Doge were created to hide and shield money from regulation and accounting. It also allows for the unregulated transfer of vast funds which nullifies the banking regulations that we currently use to penalize foreign governments for acts of war or endangering the world order.
Trumps policy of drill baby drill will not save the economy. We saw this during Trumps last term. The price of gas is set on the international market not on the US market and it is designed this way so that the energy producers are guaranteed profit. Trump went to the Saudi’s and forced them to cut production so that the price of oil would not fall in the US and cause the collapse of the energy producers. More drilling could actually cause the price of oil to fall to the point where the production of gas is no longer profitable.
If the economy was the issue that was the deciding factor in the election, it is the issue that can bring Trump down. The message to the citizenry has to be simple, effective and consumable as one plus one equals two; a message of cause and effect. A message that Trumps policies are a failure, mass deportations equal a failure of the economy, an energy policy of drilling could cause a fall in the profitability of the energy companies equals a bad economy. Trump has recently announced that he may not be able to reduce the prices at the grocery store, which is not surprising but it also equals inflation, which is a bad economy. A message that challenges the idea of Trump as an effective businessman. A message that illustrates a man that pissed away a half a billion dollars in inheritance then went to the Russian hat in hand so they could support his wealthy lifestyle. The self-proclaimed king of bankruptcy whose policies will do the same to the Nation. These are the issues that can foster a desire for change.
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