The system keeps the majority of us in socio-economic bondage with the illusion of free choice when all you really can choose between are differing degrees of terrible.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman had an article in The New York Times on Wednesday talking about the Wal-Mart wage increase. Specifically, he went over how a wage increase hadn't impacted Wal-Mart's bottom line all that much, which was a surprise to many people. Using math, Krugman outlined how this was possible and to his credit, he basically predicted that a minimum wage increase would hardly be noticed by companies that work at peak efficiency. He used an anecdote that went something like this: "If you are on top of a hill and you take one step to either side, your elevation doesn't change all that much." Of course rising out of his analysis is a conclusion: people who oppose a wage increase for minimum wage workers (to make a living wage) are not basing their arguments in fact. Rather, they are a part of the systemic problem of keeping people in socio-economic bondage.

The idea of socio-economic bondage is new to me, but I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now. The United States touts itself as "Land of the Free," but are we really free? Take for example a post I recently saw on Facebook. It regarded a youth that came home from his mission (this is an LDS thing) and "came out" to his parents as gay. The parents disowned the young man and told him he had to move out and live on his own if he were going to pursue this lifestyle. The young man in this case was obviously upset as were many people on Facebook calling the parents "unloving" and any number of awful things (which I mostly agree with but digresses from my point). And what is my point? It's simple: Americans do a disservice to one another and to their children by encouraging the idea that "You are free to be whatever you want to be." I think a more accurate statement would be, "You are born into bondage, and the only way in which you can truly be free to do what you want is to acquire money...lots of it...to buy/purchase your freedom. Until such time as you are able to do so, you will always be beholding to someone else's rules, laws, and convictions. You will not be free to choose. Not if you want to survive."

But this brings into mind (I want to borrow Al Gore's own words here) an "Inconvenient Truth." Or maybe more accurately, an uncomfortable truth. The only people in our society that are "truly free" to be what they want to be and to do what they want to do with unlimited choices are the very rich. Money = Freedom of Choice to me. It's not about buying happiness, but about buying freedom. John Goodman put it not so eloquently as the right to say "F*ck you!" to anyone in the remake of "The Gambler." That's what 2.5 million dollars gives you...the right to say "f*ck you." And I don't need to be an economist to realize that this is true.

Polite society is cloaked in euphemisms to avoid uncomfortable truths. At work, I have this thing called an "annual performance evaluation" done by a manager that I presume has either convinced himself or has convinced others of his ability to toe-the-line. But really the whole thing should just be renamed. How about "annual systemic reminder of your socio-economic bondage?" Anyone that has ever had a performance evaluation should realize that it's a means to check "performance" for any places you might be coming up short with the idea that there's some kind of punishment for non-compliance, i.e., you could lose your job. A delusional person might say, "I'm free to make that choice. I'm free to be homeless if I choose to be." But let's not mince words, that isn't much of a choice and everyone knows that.

I'm going to conclude my thoughts in that I don't feel there's any way to change this system. I'm also part of the system just like many other people. And yes, I identify myself as one of the many million that exist in socio-economic bondage every day. Am I free to choose? I suppose that if you mean I can choose between things that are less terrible then yes. As Tyrion Lannister said to Daenerys, there is the right and wrong kind of terrible. But I don't think I shall ever look at things quite the same way anymore. Much of the troubles that we have in society are because all of us exist in bondage. However, only a few can truly be free. If everyone was free...well that's called anarchy and anarchy doesn't work.

In defense of Dr. Paul Krugman and how I think he's right about everything

Paul Krugman is a Nobel-prize winning economist and writes for The New York Times. I also agree with just about everything he has to say. Is politics to play? Am I so abashedly liberal that I cannot embrace other points of view? When I read his opinions I most unabashedly find myself nodding yes, because (to my brain) what he's writing sounds so logical. I suppose by stating this, I should be thankful that I'm indeed not famous. My obscurity shields me from public attack by the ilk who frequent such capitalist pig publications like Forbes (who basically hate him). After all, defending one's opinions online against a horde of people who hate Obama and by extension everything that's been done under his watch (and have discovered their web browser allows them to comment thereby giving them a voice) is mentally exhausting. Trust me; I speak from experience.

For those of  you unfamiliar with Dr. Krugman, he is a Keynesian. In other words, he thinks that activist government spending helps the economy in times of recession. His opponents (who are very vocal on Facebook and are always posting articles to the contrary from websites like "big government overreach" and "the conservative voice") reject the notion that government intervention to aid the poor or to regulate the economy could be beneficial. In fact, they believe that any type of government involvement, including slashing of taxes to "boost economic activity" is absolutely useless and detrimental to the economy. They claim that stimulus spending leads to hyperinflation and economic disaster, and they believe that all economic exchange regardless of its nature, is highly beneficial to society. Yeah I saw Breaking Bad and not all economic exchange is beneficial.

Ben Bernanke, former head of the Federal Reserve, nominated by President
George W. Bush to succeed Alan Greenspan. He has since been succeeded
by Janet Yellen.

I don't understand Libertarian points of view. Not any of it. Reading their rants over government spending is like trying to find the logic in a David Lynch movie. Even a stooge like me can see that if you want to stimulate the economy, there has got to be money being spent. This is not rocket science. If no one is buying anything, then the economy goes to pieces. I get this. So at a time when America was hit with a recession as big as the Great Depression of 1929, why did so many people have a hard time seeing that government spending needed to step up to the plate while Americans lost jobs, hoarded money, and banks tightened up lending? We couldn't depend on our neighbors to continue spending, not when they were either losing a job or not getting a raise for years to come, and when the place they were working at was going through a hiring freeze or reorganizing under Chapter 11.

Nothing that any "Ayn Randian" voice has said about how to get out of a recession makes sense to me. In a way, it's like they're all writing fiction and spouting off specious arguments with the conviction of a Baptist preacher. Conservatives and Libertarians called the Federal Reserve bond buying program ($80 billion a month for a year) a ticking time bomb. "Inflation will sky rocket," they screamed. "This will create (or did create) an asset bubble that's gonna pop and destroy the economy!" Well guess what? That program ended successfully and there's been no asset inflation. How do I know this? I've been paying ATTENTION.

The fact is that the consumer price index which measures inflation is dangerously low at 1.5 percent. Healthy inflation according to those (like Krugman) who have the educational chops to tackle such economic science agree that inflation in the United States needs to be at 2-3% The fact that we are far below that number is why your savings account is worth nothing. Most places (if you carry a balance less than $10,000) just give you an interest rate of .01 percent per year (that's 1/100th of a percent). This means that if you keep your money in your savings account, you might as well be stuffing it in your mattress. Inflation is eating it away every day at the rate of 1.5% per year making it worth less and less over time. Why would the Federal Reserve do such a horrible thing to the saver? Because they want you to do other things with it rather than just sit on it because that's how economies prosper.

Yesterday, in an article in The New York Times entitled Francs, Fear, and Folly, Paul Krugman again said something that makes sense to me. And again, I don't think it's politics at play. What sent a shiver of fear through the stock market yesterday was that the Swiss National Bank (their equivalent to the Federal Reserve) shocked the world by abandoning its policy of pegging the franc to the euro. It also cut the interest rate it pays on bank reserves to -.75%. What? Why would they do this?

The world outside of the United States is fighting deflation (the opposite of inflation). Deflation causes economies to stagnate. People hoarding money in bank accounts can act like dominoes toppling one after another until you have this out of control spiral which is essentially what's happening in Europe and in Japan. The United States thus far appears to be the only relative safe spot in the world to put your money, but it's been fascinating to see how the rhetoric of those who hate Krugman keep saying that our central bank needs to hike interest rates soon. But if this happens before the economy is ready, my understanding (thanks to Dr. Krugman) is that this would be disastrous. Of course the anti-Krugman crusaders disagree in droves probably because saving money seems like a logical thing to do.

Hiking interest rates is a saver's boon because suddenly your CD's and your bonds and your saving's accounts are all worth something again. But here's the rub: hiking interest rates puts the brakes on a roaring economy, and our economy isn't roaring. Trust me when I say, I want higher interest rates too. I don't want to have to chuck all of my money into risky assets just to stay ahead of inflation and make a nest egg suitable for my retirement. However, Krugman thinks the time isn't right, and I believe him especially after the spooky event that just happened in Switzerland yesterday.

As further evidence that all is not right with our economy yet (it's come a great distance with low gas prices, falling unemployment, a healthy stock market, etc.), just last week we saw an unemployment report that indicated that wages were FALLING across America even as job hiring was robust. There are several theories to how this is happening because when the labor pool dries up, wages are supposed to rise. Some voices say that it's because all the jobs that are being created are crap jobs, ones that are part-time with no benefits and with low pay. All the good ones have people squatting in them because they know better than to leave. And without that sense of value, well there's just no arguing with an employer about a raise. Add to that good-paying jobs being lost in droves from the oil industry as the falling price of oil strangles huge employers like Schlumberger, and we've got problems, folks.

Overall, defending Dr. Krugman in pitched Facebook battles against people who don't read his articles has been like banging my head against a wall. I finally just decided to stop, because it isn't worth my time to do so with people who just post clips that they find from around the internet to "counter" the points that I make. I've basically either blocked those people or made their posts invisible. Isn't Facebook supposed to bring us closer together? I think I fail at social networking. But here I am, yet again, posting my final thoughts regarding Dr. Krugman, because I feel like I need to defend the man whose ideas I agree with, and it's not just politics.

Why can't everyone see that there's a reason Dr. Krugman has a Nobel Prize in economics?