Predictions for America's Future

Too many variables.

Years ago I was thinking that once Obama was elected the first time, people would realize how his policies were hurting business and the standard of living.  I thought that people would also recognize how bad the Federal Reserve was in bailing out failing banks and the government... reducing the purchasing power of their wages.  But now, 6 years later, I've realized that most people don't have a clue on Austrian economics.

My current opinion is that mob rule is in effect in the US.  Furthermore, given above, the mob is stupid.  Really stupid life forms don't learn by reason.  Nor do they learn by experience.  They just do well following tradition, or the sway of unreasoned opinion...  for whatever success that brings... until it results in death.  Assuming that technology stays the same... I don't think the US will turn back towards capitalism until after lots of people starve to death.  Once people start starving, NAZI style treatment of other humans becomes more acceptable to the mob.

I do think things will get worse in the US in the short term (~20 years).  For at least the last ~20 years we US citizens have been benefiting from the enforcement of the US dollar monopoly, with foreign countries sending us real goods in exchange for notes.  That's clearly broken down now, given that the Federal Reserve is effectively buying all issued treasuries through QE.  During that time, Americans have lost lots of manufacturing industry, and now that we're no longer getting a free lunch, people are going to get hungry before the manufacturing industry is rebuilt.  Given the nature of QE spending on real estate and treasuries, there won't be much of any motivation for people to start building new manufacturing facilities for things that the free market would rather have.  Not that I'm saying that QE style investments if directed towards the right companies would result in greater manufacturing success... no that results in Solyndra.  Prosperity and free lunch has enabled a huge growth in US population, of whom such people have had no need to learn even the basic idea that production must meet or exceed consumption in order to survive.

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On the bright side, I have high hopes for bitcoin related technology enabling people to protect their property without government help.  Perhaps other technological advances will cause shifts in power from centralized to decentralized nature.  Also China seems to be promoting physical gold savings, which may finally bring an end to gold price manipulation by western banks and the foolish nature of western investors who put too much trust in counter parties (especially the likes of JPM).

I think it more likely what we will see happen is that the most productive people will move to other places like Singapore, Hong Kong, and maybe Chile.  Somewhere else will be the new frontier, and the US will decay just as Europe did when people moved to America.

I do think that frontier is where capitalism exists, and furthermore somehow technology has to enable individuals to protect their own property.  Maybe such technology already exists, its just that the combination of prosperity and various socialist/pacifist/postmodern/progressive/etc philosophies have destroyed the common non-intellectual man's natural willingness/desire to defend the products of his labor?  Edit: no, the common man lives on gov welfare.

(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 2/25, 5:00pm)

Dean - Thank you for sharing. I'm sympathetic overall, but I think your concern over inflating the currency is overstated. Really it's just another form of taxation politicians use to subsidize debt. It all comes down to a spending problem in my book. I don't think people will starve, even when America's problems really come to a head. Again, look to 70-years of progressive rule to see where the future lies - life sucks in Rhode Island but nobody is dying in the street. Food stamps, WIC, TANF, free school lumches and the like are how politicians buy votes from the growing welfare class. They'll gut quality of life in every other area and bleed the rich dry before anyone goes without food.

That should have been an article, Steve.

Sam

I don't think Republicans are much better than Democrats.  Maybe that's all due to the Overton Window, which results from single preference voting.  But yea generally Republicans favor economic freedom more than Democrats, which is more important to us than social liberties.  But given the conspirator that I've become, I think its all just bullshit thats been orchestrated by the powers that be (Federal Reserve & friends).

"Robert", I disagree that I'm overstated the importance of inflation.  I think inflation of monopolized money is the primary source of the Fed's power.  Its a complex tax that fools the common man, and is used to help fund slave labor projects like a carrot on a stick.  For example, even today idiot retirees are buying and holding US treasuries that give an interest rate that is lower than inflation.  With the ability to legally print new monopolized money, you can do pretty much whatever you want.  And to add to the corruption, its done by a non government yet highly government privileged entity-- so that it it does not have to reveal its secrets like a government agency does.

Eva wrote:

Ironically enough, this conservatism of thought, indicating avoidance of the risk involved in drastically altering the tax code, is precisely why "Rational Expectations" fails to describe real economic behavior.

Robert:

When you are totally honest with yourself - what do you see down the road for the American Objectivist movement?

I'm not sure it is a movement, or even an 'it.'   I think of that as more a set of ideas.     If we are looking for evidence of its success, then I think we shouldn't restrict ourselves to the group metrics of its foes.

Evidence of success is not in numbers.     Evidence of success is in anectotes that are not dependent on census.   The group thinking is best done by the group thinkers.

Wherever you see things like free association erupt, that is success.   To to the 1? 10? 100? 1000? Million? -- who save their individual lives with those ideas, the numbers hardly matter.    If our ideas of success are based on "Why are we here, and what should we all be doing now as a result of that singular reason?" and we freely(or even forced) associate with others who feel the same, then we will look for numbers and group success.    If our ideas of success are based on "Why am I here, and what should I be doing now as a result of that personal reason?" and we freely associate with others who feel the same, then no matter how many achieve that success, we can call that success, independent of numbers, because each life is an answer to those questions, not all lives or most lives are 'the' answer to those questions.  Our lives are our answers, plural.  

Not that it is important in the least; it is important only to those who it is important to, but a majority political sign of these individual successes would be a future where our politicians were once again honorable state plumbers and not incompetent emperor wannabees; the importance to our nation, as a plurality of individuals, of group statistics and group leaders and group thought, will have once again shrunk back to background for the living of our lives, plural.    Until that potential future, there is success today, there will success along the path to that candidate future, there will be success even if that political future is never realized.    But for those who realize that success today, it doesn't matter how many or how long it takes, or even, if the nation ever gets there.

It's not even clear that it matters to the nation; not a problem.   The nation can take as long as it takes to reach that political future, including, forever.    The group political statistics are important only to the group worshippers and their tribal based religions.

regards,

Fred

Whoa, stream of consciousness alert.

I don't share your conclusion, Fred. I think in a democratic republic such as the United States it matters a great deal to our quality of life what others believe and what their values are. If you live in a country of looters, your choices reduce drastically down to loot or be looted.

Matthews,

I didn't write about the "Wolverton Window" but rather the Overton Window, named after James Overton.

He envisioned a vertical scale of "less freedom" to "more freedom" and at any particular time in history there will be a range on that scale that is politically palatable to voters for any particular issue. Positions that are outside of that range (outside of the window) are not going to politically acceptable without a crisis that can be spun, or heavy-duty propaganda, etc.  What's outside the window requires moving the window.

Take Gay Marriage, as an example. The window at a moment of time denotes the range of political acceptance on that topic. We have seen the Overton Window move quite rapidly towards more freedom in recent years. Lots of awareness from Hollywood.  But also a change in generations since much of the anti-gay view is part of an older generation.  Also, lots of effective libertarian rhetoric showing that prohibiting gay  marriage is violating a right - like forced segregation.  But at any given time, what legislation will or won't pass in a given jurisdiction on this issue has its upper and lower bounds.  The movement of those bounds is the movement of the window.

I use his concept a little bit differently. I "see" it as a scale that goes horizontally from total freedom to total tyranny and the window is a segment of that scale that indicates how much movement people would accept at a point in time to increases or decreases of political/economic freedom. It is not a real thing because it averages the acceptance of different people and on different topics and tends to ignore the fact that some people want lots of freedom in one area, but are willing to be regulated in other areas. But despite its fuzzy nature, It is very handy in understanding that short-term political movements are limited, barring a crisis or very unusual event. People take time to adjust to large changes. That is why you see movements back and forth between conservative approaches being accepted, and then liberal approaches, but no major moves to socialism in one jump nor a movement to pure libertarianism in one jump. And I see that the movements inside of that Overton Window are all we see short-term, but that the window itself can move over generations (with some ideas, the window can move faster than that).

Please note that understanding the Overton Window means that even if you are an Objectivist or Libertarian who believes in an end goal of minarchy, that you have to understand that it is extremely unlikely to be approached in less than generational time. (Remember how often your arguments have changed someone's mind on a major issue versus how many times you've thrown pearls before the swine without so much as pork chop in return, as Rand once put it.  But it isn't impossible since humans do have the ability to change their minds, and at points in the past there have been mass intellectual migrations happening over a short time period).

It can be interesting to consider larger or smaller windows.  A wider window is going to mean more factionalism, more confusion, and a more volitile political arena.  But that's a bit off topic.  

Matthews,

I'd just like to add that a generation would be optomistic!

Note that I said "generational time" - I didn't say how many generations. I'm not optomistic that it will be in one, or two or even three generations. BUT, it is always a mistake to understand a trend as locked in, where the context is one in which people can simply change their minds.

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On a relevant point, this gets back to necessary negotiations between labor and management. Having a hugely wide window of permissable dialogue fans the fires of possible violence.

The widest possible window of "permissable" dialogue is simple free association. Either side can ask for whatever they want, but neither side can demand (i.e., use of, or threat to use force).  And that's the opposite of violence.

The way that you phrased that is so much like an implied threat, or prediction that if employers don't negotiate (as elites think they should), then violence will be the result. But that's just because we are a nation moving towards national socialism where union thuggishness is tolerated and where the workers are lionized as a class (for political purposes) and employers are treated like villians.  (And where the "have-nots" are encouraged to act as if they are entitled, and businesses are told "You didn't build it," and the property rights are treated as irrelevant, and where natural rights are pooh-poohed, and one's only recognized rights are what the current elite say you have under the laws they make-up as they go along.)

If we were a nation moving towards some variant of fascism or feudalism, it would be reversed and the implied threat would directed at the workers who'd be given the idea that they accept low wages or they would be visited in the night by thugs.

Notice that only capitalism, by its definition has negotiations free of threats of violence or actual violence.

The only things that can fan the fires of possible violence are systems that make moral and/or legal arguments that violence just might be okay if the parties don't do what the 'system' implies they are supposed to.