Michael,
I think some of the problems go to our nature as linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, reciprocal, feedback driven reality, as markets need money to circulate, in order to function, while we tend to see it as the signal to extract from the noise of society and the economy. Which means ever more has to be added and ever more metastatic ways to store what is being saved.
I remember Ross Perot commenting, during his presidential run, that while lots of people like to play the markets, real money is in bonds. This at a time when the Republicans were on a particular rant against government debt and Bush had recently been proposing the line item veto, as a way to bring it under control. Safe to say, the contradiction stuck in my mind. Leading to my earlier point about government debt being essential to capitalism.
It also occurred to me that the line item veto had an ice cube’s shot in hell of passing congress, as it would have gutted their power over spending. Yet if they really wanted it to work, they could have broken these spending bills into their various items, have every legislator assign a percentage value to each one, put them back in order of preference and the president draws the line. “The buck stops here.”
Actual budgeting is to prioritize and spend according to ability, but they put together these enormous bills and the president can only pass, or veto them and since everyone wants their share of the pie, there is a lot of pressure to pass them. So if the legislature is in charge of the prioritizing and the president of overall spending, it would break the roles apart effectively, with those items below the line with much less support.
Though the markets would have serious problems without piles of those bonds. My suspicion is that disaster capitalism/predatory lending will come home to roost and those gathering up the largest piles of government debt will insist it be traded for remaining public properties and then we get real oligarchy, not this behind the curtain variety.
I have to say, I’m not much of an economist, having followed out of curiosity and applying ideas which were occurring to me in other aspects of life. Here is an essay I put together, trying to tie up some of them;
Though the irresistible force is meeting the immovable object and the whole house of cards is being carried aloft by some gale force winds.
