I like reading David Brooks. Today, I read his opinion piece about how it’s not about the economy anymore. That things seems to be going well with the economy; stock market is up, GDP is up, growth is booming… but somehow no one is happy. He points out the many ills in society right now, especially the report that showed that American life expectancy has decreased due to suicide and drug overdose. He draws his own conclusion on what we should do, but my gut tells me that what he prescribes is just old thinking for new problems; as he put it, policy makers will need to “…figure out how economic levers can have moral, communal and sociological effect.”
So… Jobs won’t solve these problems, but jobs will solve the problem?
I have heard that before. Polices have been made around that idea, and yet here we are. A job without dignity, both moral and economic, creates more problems than it solves.
The thing is that if you don’t earn much money and if you get a minuscule raise, though statistically a significant increase, you still don’t have shit. And if shit keeps increasing in price, you never get ahead.
Why do people under forty spend more money on “experiences” rather than homes, retirement, or even a savings account? Because that’s all they can afford.
A dollar value-based society, whose capital is not easily accessed by any economic levels except the top, creates a debt culture, and in the end, will start to eat its tail to survive.
