Friday, March 14, 2014

Economics, Probably Wrong

Here's a thought. With the decline of manufacturing over here, seventy percent of our economy is based in some way on consumer spending. Now, that's a terrifying number but it's a number nonetheless, and we have to live with it for the immediate moment.

So, what happens when you increase purchasing power for a vast section of the consumer base, which is to say provide them with more money to buy things with... which is to say, increase the minimum wage?

Economics as I understand it functions on the same principle of interconnectivity that drives a lot of the modern world--the more people that exist in the system, the better it functions, because you have more backups and a larger flow of money in the system, allowing for larger purchases, which allows for more/better manufacturing, which continues the cycle.

So what happens when you concentrate the vast majority of the money into the hands of a very few actors in that system?