The business cycle
2
In one sense there is no solution for our economic difficulties. We have a society full of mature adults who are illiterate, or innumerate, or both. They have all the skills they will ever acquire. They won’t be allowed to starve in the street. They won’t be denied the right to vote. When they get old and infirm they might me “euthanized,” but that’s a topic for another day.In another sense, the solution to our economic difficulties could appear tomorrow. The economy crashed because people realized they had built a lot of useless stuff nobody needed – second McMansions for everyone! Then we realized we could only live in one house at a time, and came to see we could not sustain an economy in which people sell burgers to their childcare providers and the government taxes their employers to pay both an earned income credit. The recovery and then the next boom will happen in the same crazy way. One day people will simply decide they’re rich.
Maybe this time it will be, not McMansions, but obelisks. “Look at all these obelisks!” Paul Krugman will say. “Nobody has obelisks like America! We’re the greatest!” The economy will heat up as bankers loan money to build new obelisks out on the edge of town. The illiterate will get jobs counting obelisks for the government. The innumerate will write panegyrics to people’s obelisks, which people will post on the hot new app that’s gleebing all the frellbots. Apple will make a fortune selling easy-to-use Burlboxes to host the obelisk panegyrics. Thomas Friedman will explain how the economy has been fundamentally transformed.
Then one day people will look around and realize Finistere is a stupid waste of time and obelisks are useless. The market will crash, and we’ll all be broke again.
Stolen entire from Monday Evening.
Update January 2024 changed format.