“The financial and political Aristocracy will continue to do more of what’s failed because they have no alternative model that leaves their power and wealth intact.
Frequent contributor B.C. has provided five charts that reflect the hollowing out of the private-sector employment. This has profound implications for education, taxes, housing and inequality.
Many people point to offshoring/global wage arbitrage as the key driver of stagnant wages and employment in the U.S., and this is certainly a factor. But we would be remiss not to note the other equally important drivers:
1. A system in which inefficient quasi-monopolies/cartels (defense, healthcare, education) are protected by a debt-based, expansionist Central State.
2. The exhaustion of the consumption/debt-based economic model.
What no one dares admit is that the U.S. economy is burdened by overcapacity(too many malls, restaurants, MRI machines, etc.) and too much debt, much of which was taken on to fund mal-investments (McMansions in the middle of nowhere, duplicate medical tests, costly weapons systems the Pentagon doesn’t even want, etc.)
Consider this thought experiment. Suppose the offshoring of jobs was suddenly banned; only U.S. workers could be hired (setting aside that this is impossible in an economy where 50%-60% of U.S. corporate sales, profits and labor are non-U.S.; how are corporations supposed to compete in markets that generate 60% of their sales/profits if they can’t hire local workers?)
Does a ban on offshoring suddenly make it profitable to hire more employees in the U.S.? No, it doesn’t. Healthcare costs are still double those of our global competitors America’s Hidden 8% VAT: Sickcare (May 10, 2012), and stagnant wages and high debt levels leave few opportunities for big profits.
Instead of developing new products and services, corporations either slash labor costs or belly up to the State trough of favored cartels: defense, healthcare and education. It is no mystery why these three State-protected sectors have seen costs skyrocket in a low-inflation, low-growth economy: college tuition has leaped by 1,100% above inflation and healthcare has risen 600% above the CPI (consumer price index).
Once the State enforces quasi-monopolies and cartels, inefficiencies rise because the feedback from reality (i.e. price) has been severed. This is how you get an economy where a biopsy costs $70,000, new fighter aircraft cost $200+ million each (six times the previous top-of-the-line fighter) and a conventional (i.e. non-Ivy League) college education costs $120,000 – $200,000…..”
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
