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A Pitch For Balance
After the Great Depression, the United States passed sweeping legislation to restore faith in our financial system, creating institutions like the Securities and Exchange Commission to police our financial markets. For nearly a century, these revolutionary bulwarks helped us avoid economic catastrophe.
But, beginning in the 1980’s, we started to gut these protections under the false assumption that big business left unchecked could govern itself. Yes, over the past fifty years certain private citizens have accrued wealth hitherto unknown in human history (save for kings and emperors), the American middle class has shrunk upwards, and people worldwide have seen a rise in their standard of living. While lifting a billion people out of poverty is, by any objective metric, a good thing, these economic measures have had unintended consequences. Because, while racing to embrace globalization and nearly unlimited credit, the American economic system has inadvertently stressed the middle class to a breaking point while creating some of the largest financial bubbles in history. The run up in crypto currency, the stock market, and real-estate were not unexpected to regulators. They knew that flooding the market with liquidity after the 2007 housing crisis would require leaning heavily on the market. Conversely this easy money did not let the world return to a new normal. Instead, from China to the Western world, we have bubbles primed to pop everywhere.
When bubbles burst, as they inevitably must, there is hell to pay. Let’s be crystal clear, we cannot print our way out of the reality that what goes up must come down. As a society we have to learn once again to live within our means and restore balance to our national economy.
As inflation picks up and the bubbles expand, it becomes readily apparent that a storm is coming. But how will we collectively adjust? Just as a global depression tested the world a century ago, enabling the rise of Nazism and Fascism, the United States responded by electing Franklin D. Roosevelt. The political polarization we are experiencing in much of the Western World today is a harbinger -- we are out of balance, and we have a choice to make. Do we work to restore balance to our world in a fair and measured manner leading to what I refer to as “character-based capitalism?” Or do we continue into what could become a new Dark Age? The choice is ours.
Nature demands respect. Whether you believe in a higher power or God, the fact remains that our world requires us to live in harmony. When we don’t, we begin to experience things like the three large crises of today: global warming, pandemics, and income inequality. After all, we cannot enjoy a word of economic prosperity if we no longer have a safe world to inhabit.
By recognizing that sacrifice shared fairly among our citizens is necessary to restoring balance, we have principals to follow to improve our world in a sustainable manner. The work begins with each of us. Just as we individually strive to lead healthy lives with proper sleep and diet, we must each do the work so that we contribute to helping maintain our families and in turn our institutions and society. When we sacrifice our own principles and fail to take care of ourselves physically, spiritually, and psychologically, our families begin to break apart and accordingly our institutions and communities follow.
It is not that complicated. Delay a bit of gratification, and work to restore balance in our lives, and lasting prosperity can be established for all. Continue to believe in unlimited free money and unrestrained capitalism without proper checks and balances, and we will sink like the unsinkable Titanic.
We are the first multicultural democracy in history. People from around the world are still risking life and limb to come to the United States. We are an amazingly adaptable people and one of our principal strengths is our diversity and respect for new ideas. I for one, as a Baby Boomer, recognize that we have gotten off track and complacent, and we owe it to the next generation to do the work and restore the American Dream. We can become the next “greatest generation” and demonstrate that we are never too old to change, and never too entrenched in the past to embrace new ways.
CATCH UP ON RECENT PUCK EPISODES
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-35-shaylyn-romney-garrett/id1338978270?i=1000541478654
Jim speaks with writer and social entrepreneur Shaylyn Romney Garrett about how we got to where we are today. Author of The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, Garrett covers a wide range of topics including income inequality, polarization, and social isolation. A discussion that you don’t want to miss!