I think you have touched on the true problem in our country. A good economic system is one that rewards the producers in proportion to their production. Of course it is impossible to do this exactly or fairly in every instance under the best of circumstances, but it seems that our system has increasingly favored the least productive. For example we should have a system which rewards Cisco, Microsoft, and other productive and innovative companies who develop, market and sell products which make our lives better and/or increase productivity. We should not be rewarding "Financial Wizards" who manage to take perfectly good financial institutions and run them into the ground and then rewards them,and screws the people they hurt, and leaves the rest of us holding the bag.
The reason this has occurred is that the government has refused to let money play its role. The role of money is price discovery. As the result of innumerable tax policies, subsidies, regulations,and outright dishonesty the people who are best able to game the system are rewarded. Ergo money does not discover the proper price of things. Many who deserve better become the losers and the "political class" i.e. those who control the pols, gets richer at the expense of savers, and workers who don't know how to game the system or that there is even a game.
Look at Senior Citizens whose natural investment style is safety first and income second. Where do they go to earn a measly 5% on their money. CD's, treasurys, can't do it. So they feel compelled into more speculative investments such as "guaranteed variable annuities" and believe me many will be hurt again while the finacial institutions and sales persons who sell suck the blood of folks who saved all their lives for a decent retirement.
Until we understand that this is the root of our problem we will never solve it
lj |
