Prompted by “The Costs of a $15 Minimum Wage”: http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/28/the-costs-of-a-15-minimum-wage
“In the 1970s, when oil prices jumped, most liberals embraced a simple solution: price controls.”
“The impulse was understandable. Gasoline is an essential commodity for most people. When the cost rises, it imposes a heavy burden on consumers, most of whom have few transportation options.”
“In 1971, in an attempt to tame inflation, Republican President Richard Nixon imposed controls on almost all prices. By 1974, he had lifted most of them. But those on gas remained. Under Democratic President Jimmy Carter, they led to widespread shortages and long lines at service stations—and didn’t keep prices from rising…
…Liberals learned an unforgettable lesson: Price controls on gasoline don’t work.”
“But they embrace a similar approach for another problem: low pay for many workers.”
Putting aside that 1971 was the year Nixon formally declared the highly destructive war on some drugs (memory serving, and not to mention the year of my birth fwiw) that usually meets my expression here, I want to include economic seriousness here instead, because (at least based upon my evening viewing) the mainstream media basically never talks about the economy — a major issue having major societal impact (especially upon younger generations unaware of serious economic lies forming at least a dangerous credit bubble — basically widespread thievery by certain wealthy people benefiting by such lies, but only in the short term probably against their sensible focus, so foolishly negating awareness of reality’s scientific need for balance against them — i.e. they pitifully fail to understand that they cannot possibly escape paying in full for the suffering they are causing by such thievery, based upon hardcore science).
Economic laws of supply and demand are well-tested for many generations, and they make sense, but they also defy traditional political leftists’ belief that elitists should have dominant power to coercively define equality in part by financial equality (such leftists must always break the economic law to continue a demonstrably absurd agenda with all of the abusive favoritism demonstrated throughout humanity’s duration).
“An editorial in The New York Times wished away unwanted responses. It promised that the change will yield ‘savings from lower labor turnover and higher labor productivity.’ Higher pay can ‘be offset by modestly higher prices’ and by ‘paying executives and shareholders less.'”
That is reason abuse (merely one example amongst a vast ocean of them) in the form of the ‘partial truth = whole truth’ scam. The prompting article explains why those claims are fallacious (and is definitely worth reading upon opportunity), but in tune with my (never pretentious) cosmic-reaching tendency at my journal, your reading continuance here is equal to joining me on a much larger (global) economic ride.
The economy has a total value naturally based upon the value of the products and services available. Seizing control of major economic parameters, elitists pretend to competently manage (at least arguably) the most complex global system by humanity — one that has so many factors, the unintended consequences of tweaking any of those parameters inevitably means an unwieldy economy (i.e. anyone saying they understand the economy enough to responsibly tweak economic parameters is lying to you). From weather (and other environmental) factors to health factors to efficiency factors to essentially (if not literally) all of the countless variables applicable to humanity (even including those from outer space), the economy engine is impossible to fully grasp, so responsibly maintain by elitist tinkering (which historically has offered dramatic impact merely shifting the victims of economic tragedy — hidden Great Depressions at the personal level in a way bypassing mainstream media reporting).
One reason why some of the rich stay rich is they have been granted control over certain economic parameters. Conflicts of interest form temptation to lie about economic results to preserve their elitist “settlement” (nothing in reality can objectively settle). One obvious and serious case of such lying (that the mainstream media apparently never touches) is the injection of currency to unnaturally pretend the total economic value is reasonably healthy — the macrocosm of someone using a credit card as money to solve personal financial problems, so “kicking the can down the road” (there is no free lunch in life — someone always pays).
One does not need to be an economic expert to understand that lies cannot be forever sustained (they form distortions that grow upon “successfully” sustaining the lie), so they always have real consequences matching the size of the lie. When Nixon (a terribly busy man before impeachment) also removed the Gold Standard (the idea that currency needed real value by never exceeding the total value of precious metals — e.g. gold, silver, etc. — which have maintained steady value for thousands of years), he started the horribly insane idea that economic fantasy is a problem solver for serious economic pressures in a very dynamic reality. The result is our government can be publicly trusted (despite ample evidence to the self-interest-serving contrary) to determine the value of a dollar by force, regardless of actual economic results.
The economy (like literally everything) is energetic, so modulates. That means negative dominant pressures (like they exist for all of us sometimes throughout our lives — challenging us to adapt or die) must exist in economic affairs (including major negative spikes to balance out major positive ones). If we remain honest about those pressures, we have a better shot at actually understanding actual economic forces, so better learn from our mistakes (as widely deadly as those mistakes must be when preferring excessively high wealth results from economic boons). Otherwise, there’s a bubble — one that keeps expanding until reality no longer needs that expansion due to its need for balance and — pop!
In this case, returning to abusing (even if by undesirable necessity) a credit card as money to “resolve” personal financial problems, that bubble is the credit card company (actually reality in its literally supremely dominant form) coming to settle the debt one way or another (e.g. abject poverty). People with any amount of money possess currency (paper or computerized). If that currency loses value, it takes more currency to buy real goods and services that continue to maintain their value regardless (price fixing does not change that). Since there is way more currency than precious metals (thank you, Nixon and company), if too many people lose confidence in their currency and try to cash out and turn their currency into precious metals, everyone will be in for a shock — there is not enough precious metals to cover that cash out, so the money they thought they had is actually unreal (think Great Depression on a global scale, because the American dollar is the global reserve currency, because roughly several decades ago — 1940’s or 50’s, memory serving — the dollar was steadily on par with the value of gold, and since paper is easier to transfer than gold among paying nations, basically the world agreed to accept the dollar as the global reserve currency).
As someone who has basically experienced and still witnesses the full spectrum of economic status, I can say that many factors beyond money contribute to determining the value of experiencing life (i.e. equality). The rich cannot buy love or a sense of humor. They cannot buy a cure in all cases upon illness. They cannot escape the constant pressures against their wealth. They are not more free, despite the illusion often publicly presented to the contrary. Like people adapting to temperature (e.g. people in southern California wearing sweaters when the temperature dips down to a “frosty” 73 degrees — while yours truly from a more dynamic climate enjoys wearing shorts then and there), reality will collect in the form of suffering one way or another (again, there is no free lunch, and the rich cannot bribe reality, which does not have any conflict of interest — but the one interest which is reality’s permanent stability ultimately against any being within reality).
Resource allocation cannot righteously be about judicial coercion, if sanity must prevail (which it obviously does for humanity’s survival). Those exercising that insane coercion stupidly rig the economic system for themselves, while the economy forms at least one globally serious bubble ready to explode upon one unlucky set of generations (unless humanity finds another way to diffuse the problem — not effectively pretend there is no serious problem, as is the case these days).
The global reserve currency has lost a lot of value (not even close to matching the value of gold), and the only thing keeping the whole system operating as it does is ultimately American military might. That might will not only deteriorate due to militaristic need for an actually healthy economy for militaristic sustainment, it will usher in a new era of honest economic reality (i.e. people with precious metals will become the elitist rich responsible for establishing new currency and likely other laws, including those with respect to liberty — why nations such as China, India, and Russia are apparently buying precious metals).
Everything in reality cycles, but each cycle is never permanent (only reality itself is demonstrably permanent). When humanity revisits the economic collapse part of the current popular cycle (the pros and cons of internationally wielding economic fantasy), the ultimate relevant question is will humanity finally be ready to sustain that economic honesty for humanity’s integrity, or keep effectively foolishly insisting that reason abusers make sound economic leaders?
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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