For at least the last 20 years our government has fostered a type of capitalism that is lopsided, as few get rich, not many.
Study the facts on this.
We've created bubbles extraordinaire that have made people millionaires, and people lose millions. Values of things have lost all proportion of reality (housing, the internet stocks, retail products) and the citizenry, Joe the Trader, have been working, investing in their homes and retirement accounts, and feeling and acting wealthier.
For years Ayn Rand student Alan Greenspan was our hero. "Lower interest rates", promote debt, and "allow creative means to get more into homes". The bubble built and built.
Certain industries flourished. During the Bush era, for example, jobs looked good, but if you looked close, they only looked good in housing, construction, and banking.
Lopsided economies bring entitlement. They make us think we "are worth it", that "we can afford it" and that the "economy" will come back, and it will be okay again.
I see this much differently.
Unemployment, true numbers, are close to 20%. We have 1 in 2 homes being foreclosed on that are being "sold", so houses are not selling. The stock market is rising, and banks appear to be finding new ways to rape us.
What will be different, as I see it, is that there will be less money. We will be spending less.
Or, if we are not, and we rebuild the same model, we're hellbent to destroy ourselves.
A lopsided economy has us expecting 20% returns, or investments to go up 40%, and despite OUR moving our industrial nation overseas for our desire for LOW prices, it precipitates choices that must be made.
I believe we will be sacrificing. That the "bottom is not over" and that the "world is not better".
The world has become such a consumption driven economics that we forget the birth of home economics, the way we financed World War 1, personal savings, and our move in recent years to $400.00 Gucci purses made of plastics.
All this would mean that I would be against government spending, when at this point in time, I am actually seeing it as the necessary medication to move dollars back into our economy.
As everyone argues, we must recognize that two generations of a lop sided economy cannot be fixed without pain to everyone.
