Monday, June 15, 2009

Links 6/15

Today’s reflection:

Those who oppose fiscal stimulus and welfare/workfare/health coverage for the unemployed may or may not realize they are supporting the existing system’s inequities.  The people at the bottom are the ones getting hurt.  Some of these writers are libertarians who just oppose government in almost any form.  Some are financial professionals who are representing, consciously or unconsciously, the interests of their moneyed clientele, who hate paying taxes.  Some have observed that the government simply doesn’t work anymore, that the military-industrial-financial complex has too many fingers in the pie for tax dollars to be spent on anything other than more of the same.  If the next big nonlinear event in America is a renegotiation of the social contract that is likely to occur over the next decade, it may begin with a tax revolt like that in California.  But without a change of the social contract as embodied in government policies and income distribution, a tax revolt merely cements the power of the ruling elite and punishes those at the bottom for being there.  This is a recipe for social unrest.  It cannot be the end of the story.

Comments?

2 comments:

  1. BB,

    Why won't a devaluation of the dollar cause inflation, due to due foreign demand for goods and services?

    ReplyDelete
  2. A depreciation of the dollar causes import prices to rise, which is inflationary in the supply shock sense. You still need a wage-price spiral to get a sustained inflation going.

    Benign

    ReplyDelete