The recent upheaval of the world economic markets has been as confusing as it has been severe. Massive amounts of money, debt and uncertainty flood the markets and the lives of us all. People turn to "experts" from many fields such as economics, finance, politics, defense, sociology and others. We want to know how this happened and how it will end. The problem is that these experts are not much help. As Chris Hedges describes in his brilliant post, The Idiots Who Rule America, the experts are a product of the broken system and can no more fix it that a flat tire can change itself.
Since the experts have yet to prove themselves useful, I have decided to look elsewhere for answers. I went to the people that know nothing about economics. People like you and me. I went to the water cooler at my office, in the break room and interviewed people there. I asked about the economy, where it was going and how we got here. The answers were candid and unlike the double-speak or canned responses we hear over and over again.
(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)
Since the experts have yet to prove themselves useful, I have decided to look elsewhere for answers. I went to the people that know nothing about economics. People like you and me. I went to the water cooler at my office, in the break room and interviewed people there. I asked about the economy, where it was going and how we got here. The answers were candid and unlike the double-speak or canned responses we hear over and over again.
(Interestingly, no one wanted to be quoted directly. It seems that they hold such disregard for experts, that they would not want to be mistaken for one by getting their names in print. So, I will simply call them The Water Cooler Journal of Economic Policy.)
The first question I asked, was: How did this happen? The consensus is that it is a function of two factors. First, shareholders offer incentives (bribes) to executives and their sales staff in the form of commissions and payouts for making the investors rich at the expense of everyone else. Second, they set it up so that no one can catch them. Regulatory and Government institutions and personnel are also involved in this because they are paid by lobbyists to lift restrictions or turn a blind eye to unethical or illegal behavior. But, the primary engine for all of this destruction seems to be the avaricious relationship between the investor and the sales staff. It is a culture that breeds corruption. One woman did state that the real reason is that the Oil industry has used its massive wealth to co-opt everyone in any position of authority to enslave us all. We all moved away from her, because the break room is under video surveillance. We did all agree that the US shift from an economy based on manufacturing into one based on debt and massive consumption must have something to do with it.
My next question was: How low will the markets fall? A brief heated discussion ensued. There was a debate over the topic of dollar valuation, the gold standard and fiat moneys. No one had any idea at all. We did fill out an office pool on the lowest closing mark to be reached by the Dow Jones Index by Jan 1, 2009. I placed $10 on $6500. I just figured that the market was going to not only erase all of the Bush/Cheney era gains and some of the Clinton/Gore for good measure.
I then asked: How will we know it's over? We almost all agreed that the very guilty in all this have not yet been identified. We broke down into two camps. One group suggested that the people that stood to make the most money from all this mayhem have not been identified yet. The rest of us thought that so long as Bush/Cheney were in office, there would be no pressure to find out any valuable information for fear of exposing themselves or their financial backers.
Finally, I asked: What should be done? This led to the usual quip, "The first thing we do, is kill all the lawyers". One woman, who has actually read Shakespeare noted that quote was issued by Bush/Cheney types in Henry IV were the ones that made the trying to 'game' the markets of their day. This gave rise to the lone McCain/Palin supporter in our office trying to defend Bush, Cheney, McCain and Exxon/Mobil. This was only amusing for a few minutes, so I returned to the question at hand. The best guess we could produce is that we're in for another solid year of declines, marked by increasing scandal, criminal investigation and one or two suicides by parties suspected of scandal.
After that, we should see a wave of whistle-blowers and a public too fed up with these shenanigans to believe a goddamn word any investment banker says. Look for shareholders' meetings to get pretty wild and crazy. For our part, we suggest that the DOJ not only go after the executives in these shady operations, but to begin arresting sales managers in branch offices. The average CEO has enough cash on hand and political clout to mount a legal defense. The average sales manager however, has very little room to negotiate and no leverage whatsoever. If sales managers start going to court or jail, you can bet that the industry will change overnight - and the DOJ will have no shortage of whistle-blowers or paper-trail evidence to really nail the CEO's they're after.
- gadfly