Michael Hudson asks: “In light of the enormous productivity gains since the end of World War II – and especially since 1980 – why isn’t everyone rich and enjoying the leisure economy that was promised?”
The answer (per Hudson) is painfully obvious, but bears repeating (ad infinitum):
What was applauded as a post-industrial economy has turned into a financialized economy. The reason you have to work so much harder than before, even when wages rise, is to carry your debt overhead. You’re unable to buy the goods you produce because you need to pay your bankers. And the only way that you can barely maintain your living standards is to borrow even more. This means having to pay back even more in years to come.
That is the Eurozone plan in a nutshell for its economic future. It is a financial plan that is replacing industrial capitalism – with finance capitalism.
Industrial capitalism was based on increasing production and expanding markets. Industrialists were supposed to use their profits to build more factories, buy more machinery and hire more labor. But this is not what happens under finance capitalism. Banks lend out their receipt of interest, fees and penalties (which now yield credit card companies as much as interest) in new loans.
The problem is that income used to pay debts cannot simultaneously be used to buy the goods and services that labor produces. So when wages and living standards do not rise, how are producers to sell – unless they find new markets abroad? The gains have been siphoned off by finance. And the financial dynamic ends up in austerity.
And to make matters worse, it is not the fat that is cut. The fat is the financial sector. What is cut is the bone: the industrial sector. So when writers refer to a post-industrial economy led by the banks, they imply deindustrialization. And for you it means unemployment and lower wages.
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
And weep.
(Image: jesse.millan, Flickr)
bastard.logic 
Paul Krugman today zeroes in on the astonishing data point that had “growth” been equal, “incomes of typical workers would be 30 or 40 percent higher than they are”, if middle income growth had matched the growth of the one percent.
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Still beckons believe of how politicians and bankers alike can honestly believe that it is possible to fight debt by burdoning us all with more of it. Anyway, given the absurdity of fiat banking systems, perhaps we should all fully embrace them by wiping off all debt and printing enough money to start back from scratch? ;-)
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