Sometimes its hard for me to get a word in edgewise with trey when he’s on a roll. Which is always. He says that I always disagree with him and he hates it. Honestly, if he wanted someone who agreed with him all the time he could pick up one of the “sluts” that seem to hang around fraternity boys the same way mosquitoes can’t resist your skin (similar in more ways than one, I might add)
I admit that I disagree a lot, even if I don’t disagree entirely, just a little bit, I don’t go out of my way to let him know about the parts that I do agree on. And its because when he talks about something, I know that he only talks about things that he knows but it irks me the way he talks about it. Its as if his opinion consists of the only real and knowledgeable facts in the world that you should rely on and everyone else is wrong. Unless they agree. A lot of times he is right. Not entirely, but right enough to pass off as correct. But you can’t address everything like that. You can’t address everything single-mindedly. The problem does not just consist of A, the problem consists of a mix of A, B, C, some T, and lot of X.
So our unemployed population does not just consist of those lazy homeless who beg all day and don’t need an unemployment stimulus benefits (which I agree, I hate those people). But our unemployed people are the Generation Xers and Millienials who thought that the baby boomers would clear out by now (indeed that’s what we’ve been preparing for in business school, its why the big firms are bending over backwards to woo the ever decreasing workforce). But because baby boomers hit the retirement age and they want to retire but have found that due to the shitty economic climate, all their assets have greatly depreciated and the government can’t afford to pay their social security because that money has gone elsewhere. So they keep working at high wages (because they’ve been there for a long time) and prevent new workers from getting jobs. Our unemployed are the people who have been laid off, not because they were terrible workers but because firms have found that in this day and age of globalization, innovation and increased productivity are costing more than what the firm can afford. So they’re cutting back on their largest overhead: labor. Lets not forget the slump that the Southeast region has been in since Hurricane Katrina (because of the shoddy federal response) and the continued devastation on the area from the awful oil spill. Thousands are out of work and through no fault of their own.
I agree that the culprits behind the economic failure be allowed to fail themselves. It’s the very nature of the market to repair itself. As long as the demand is there, the supply will come. I agree that the stimulus package may have prolonged the cycle and it may take a little longer to repair our economy because as we throw money at our problem, we take another step closer to international contempt at our debt that we can’t seem to control. But it did mildly alleviate problems our people were having troubles facing. But to point fingers to the stimulus as a single cause for the extension of the unemployment that’s plaguing our country is simply wrong. In any recovery, repressing unemployment rates is anemic at best. Simply put, you just don’t have jobs during these times. Considering this has been the worst depression since the Great Depression I would say expect tough times as it is. Combined with the fact that previous recoveries were aided by bubble industries (doc com, housing, etc) we are in for tough times indeed, unless we encounter a bubble of our own to aid us in our economic struggle for stability.
In response to your ideas of a New Deal type solution, I like it. I liked FDR and I liked his plans. And while his extended presidency was extreme, it certainly wasn’t uncalled for as his leadership steered America away from prolonged disaster. Desperate times call for desperate measures after all. I’m just curious about whether or not Trey’s worried about spending more money from an already depleted Treasury.
What it comes down to is this. In the previous paragraphs I’ve agreed on almost every single technical point he brought up in our disagreement. Its really is just his manner of approaching the problem. He may or may not be right and I’m not trying to promote that stupid maxim ‘no right or wrong answer’ but in macro economics, there really isn’t. There are only theories and attempts to change the market. But for him to charge into the conversation, declaring absolute Truth with that classic American hubris, of course I’m going to hate it.
And of course I’m going to challenge him.
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