Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
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Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#2Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#3I’m really surprised this piece was almost entirely about public opinion, only using economics to discuss the likelihood of a recession soon and the effects of inequality.
The levers our governments have been pulling to steer the economy are reaching their maximum. The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to stimulate the economy (probably) don’t work when interest rates negative.
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#4I’m really surprised this piece was almost entirely about public opinion, only using economics to discuss the likelihood of a recession soon and the effects of inequality. The levers our governments have been pulling to steer the economy are reaching their maximum. The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to stimulate the economy (probably) don’t work when interest rates negative.
The fundamental problem is that you can't use interest rates to set fiscal policy, only monetary policy. Central banks do what they can, but it's like chemo: low or negative interest rates create asset bubbles while attempting to start the economy back up (and if wages disconnect preventing the ability to acquire inflated assets, you aren't going to try to acquire assets; Central Banks can keep those asset values inflated artificially forever though). Who have assets? Older and wealthy people [1]. If your government won't act with policy to fix fiscal (not monetary policy), you encounter the Populism response (which should surprise no one but apparently still does [2]). The Federal Reserve chair Powell has come out and said as much ("we have exhausted our toolkit").
TLDR It's time for the government to tax and spend.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/25/six-facts...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/30/historian-b...
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#5Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?
Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#6[flagged]
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#7Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?
Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...
> The World's Top 26 Welfare Recipients Now Own as Much as the Poorest 3.8 Billion, Says Oxfam
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#8In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income.
We as a nation have basically told people "no, you can't have a comfortable life or save for retirement because your parents' generation still needs to get 10% annual growth to make their retirement math work". Nevermind that retirement isn't going to be an option for us. That's lead a lot of us to abandon our work ethic, which will have some severe repercussions down the road.
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#9[flagged]
Most young people are paradoxically for unfettered immigration
I'm not sure that is true.
Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession
#10>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people.
As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous.