Tyranny, by any other name:
The Tyranny Nobody Talks About
All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude.
There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their businesses afloat.
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The major players in the U.S. economy used four tricks to offset the ever-higher costs: globalization, financialization, reducing quality/quantity and turning the workforce into neofeudal gig economy precariats. By offshoring high-wage manufacturing to nations with lax environmental standards and enforcement, Corporate America scored a two-fer: drastically lower costs of production in both labor and environmental controls.
The feudal lords of our financial system, the Federal Reserve, cemented capital’s complete dominance over labor by dropping interest rates to zero and flooding Corporate America with trillions of dollars of essentially free money. The 20-year decline in interest rates allowed Corporate America to refinance debt at absurdly low rates, and borrow trillions more at absurdly low rates to buy back stocks, enriching the managers and top 5% who own the vast majority of equities.
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As for drastically reduced quality and quantity–all you have to do is open your eyes and look. Cold cereal boxes are now so tall and narrow (to maintain the illusion of quantity via the size of the box on the shelf) that they cannot even stand upright on their own any more. As for the contents– barely half the box contains a product; the rest is air.
The list of products that fail by design or cost-cutting is essentially endless, as is the list of products whose ingredients have been cheapened and the list of manufactured goods stripped of quality so when the cheapest component (often a sensor or chip in today’s digital-obsessed consumerist paradise) fails, the entire device must be tossed in the landfill because repair is now either impossible or too costly.
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So why don’t we look at the sources of the high costs that are eroding the economy? Because every high-cost structure is someone’s gravy train: some politically sacrosanct and untouchable special interest or class of insiders depends on ever-higher costs to fund their ever-higher wages, benefits, profits, etc., and they will not be denied their gravy train.
Since healthcare, higher education, local government, etc. is unaffordable, let’s print money and give it away as the “solution” to unaffordability. This faux “solution” merely transfers the rising risk of collapse to the entire economy.
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All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude. The tyranny of ever-higher costs is about to crush the economy, and saying it isn’t so doesn’t make it so.
Four reasons this economic tyranny has occurred:
- Globalization
- Financial Elites
- Big Pharma / Big Insurance / Big Med
- Administrative Costs
Where most of those four things are actually the same thing: Centralizers.
Higher costs occurred because it is advantageous in numerous ways to the centralizers. It provides them more wealth, more tools by which to funnel stolen wealth, and more centralization of industries/business that they control.
It’s important to remember that costs for these societal necessities were never this high before. Only recently have they exploded in price. Ironically enough, this happened during the same time frame when financial elites centralized nearly every institution in the nation.
Healthcare is a perfect example:
Yes, you read that correctly, from 1970 to 2020 health spending as a percent of GDP went from only about 7% to ~18%.
Again, what changed?
- Globalization
- Financial Elites
- Big Pharma / Big Insurance / Big Med
- Administrative Costs
The administrators at healthcare facilities have exploded in number and cost. Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Med have all exploded in size (and in governmental lobbying power). Globalization has made us lose a competitive edge in medicine.
The centralizers and financial elites of each of these groups profit from this.
Who doesn’t profit? You. Me. The usual ones left behind under a tyrannical rule by few system.
Healthcare is but one example. The same is true for education, where administrative costs now far outweigh the costs of faculty or supportive staff. And for every other major expense that keeps draining us, leading to middle-class economic tyranny.
We can’t print our way out of this, no matter how fun the money printer is.
Read Next:
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