With regard to Mr. Neroden's observation:
I personally don't expect this problem to be solved by our current sclerotic political system, and I really don't know what's going to happen because of that (people don't tolerate 10% unemployment for long, though).
Perhaps we will *continue* to have politicians in power who don't understand macroeconomics. If so, expect further civil unrest as people will be unhappy about rising unemployment. Or perhaps we will get politicians who do understand macroeconomics. It's hard to tell when they talk out of both sides of their mouths, though.
I maintain that our present malaise has led us so far into uncharted economic terriotory, and the "safety valves" used in previous instances tied down for so long, that "macroeconomics" isn't going to be able to address these imbalences It's
microeconomics, under the management of people from all sectors of society, but who live closer to the economic realities of the street, who will get us out of this one, as always.
We are where we are today because a large portion of the world caught on to what we've been doing right for a long time -- now we have to compete, and we can't compete as effectively with a large portion of our economy expecting to be protected. The unfortunate fact is that change is painful, and in the short run, globalization (the latest target for those peopetual malcontents on the radical fringe) does create losers -- usually the poorest-educated in economics, to whom the agove-mentioned malcontents are eager to sell their nostrums. Amtrak LD is, regrettably, a near-perfect example.
But on a more positive note, the sectors most likely to lead and mitigate the readjusment which has to come, areas like agriculture, light manufacturing, and ordinary retail trade, remain firmly in American hands, usually managed by people who know how to get things done -- not flouting the plans of the bureaucratic dreamers, but skirting them where common sense allows.
Unfortunately such plans can seldom find a place for the heavy, immovable, and targeted capital that characterizes the rail industry. Ironically, South Africa's last and finest steam power met an earlier-than-anticipated demise when the commuter service they were slated to oawer contracted under prressure from locally (and non-white)-run jitney operations. Ditto for Mexico's remaining intercity services when the Institutional revolutionary Party (PRI) oligocracy was cornered, after a 70-year reign, into sharing power with a younger coalition more intersted in deregulated air fares and more private vehicles
It's only in America, of late, that some people seem intersted in waailng out global trends which are, ultimately, ineascapable Another frightening possibility here that
nobody seems willing to confront, is what happens when a displaced worker begins to recognize that a $300/wk Unemployment check beats $11.00/hr when the impact of Social Security plus state and local taxes is factored in. With a huge bulge in the population approaching retirement, more and more people are running their economic lives short-term. The underground econony is growing, and very difficult to police (unless you have visions of becoming one of the policemen).
Forget the worn-out whine about the "distribution of wealth"; the majority of private wealth lies within corporate control, and is usually passed on to institutions and philanthropies within a generation or two. The hue and cry comes mostly from the Beltway insiders who seek it for their own pet projects and their politically-connected cronies like Soros
et al.
And to cite another paralell from the tunesmiths:
"We're waist deep in the Big Muddy; the Big Fool says to push on" (Pete Seeger)
