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I am still struggling to come to terms with Trump\u2019s election last week.\u00a0 <\/span>There is a part of me that would like to at least give him a chance to break the economic and political status quo, having been elected with a mandate to do so.\u00a0 <\/span>There is another, perhaps more intelligent, part of me that sees him as the ultimate actor, honed by business and reality TV, pretending to overturn the status quo while carefully avoiding the roots of the problem.<\/p>\n As I see it, the majority of the problems facing our country today \u2013 wage stagnation, spiraling costs of education and health care, increasing public and private indebtedness, declining quality and durability of goods, decaying infrastructure, increasing homelessness and joblessness, among others \u2013 can be traced to one simple reality.\u00a0 <\/span>In short, the real economy of goods and services has stopped growing at a meaningful rate.\u00a0 <\/span>This has many causes, but it can ultimately be traced back to resource limits, to the fact that human population is approaching (and probably exceeding, over the longer term) our planet\u2019s carrying capacity.\u00a0 <\/span>It simply is not possible to continue producing more cars, refining more oil, allowing everyone to purchase bigger houses on more land.\u00a0 <\/span>These limits alone could be dealt with; it is perfectly possible for humanity to meet its needs and have an acceptable standard of living in a steady-state economy.<\/p>\n The major problem, or at least the one we can actually address, is that the upper class of society \u2013 the top 20% or so – continues to believe in economic growth and continues to see rising incomes.\u00a0 <\/span>The \u201ctrickle down\u201d policies that supported increased wealth for the upper class on the basis that it would create rising incomes for everyone only work when the economy is growing.\u00a0 <\/span>When the economy is stagnant or growing very slowly, as is true now and will be true for much of my lifetime as we face hard limits to growth, then the game becomes zero-sum.\u00a0 <\/span>Increased wealth for the upper class means decreased wealth and loss of financial security for the middle and lower classes.<\/p>\n Examples of this zero-sum game abound, but I will list a few of the more obvious ones:<\/p>\n Wages and financial security have been declining for most Americans for some time, but until this last election the political class managed to avoid the issue, focusing instead on distracting Americans with the traditional right vs. left platforms \u2013 the wrong problems.\u00a0 <\/span>Ignorance is no longer possible, as a growing, angry populist movement is quickly becoming fed up with a government that fails to serve them.\u00a0 <\/span>Bernie Sanders arose out of that movement, and so, most unfortunately, did the president-elect Donald Trump.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m not sure if Bernie could have defeated Trump, or if he really intended to work toward the right solutions.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m sure, however, that Trump has none of the right solutions in mind.<\/p>\n If the problem is growing economic inequality and insecurity in a stagnant economy, here are some of the wrong solutions:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All of the right solutions begin with a simple premise.\u00a0 <\/span>In a zero-sum game, there is a loser for every winner.\u00a0 <\/span>Thus in order to stop the immiseration of the lower and middle classes, we must stop the enrichment of the upper class.\u00a0 <\/span>That alone will not be enough, however, as the current economic status of the majority of Americans is tenuous at best.\u00a0 <\/span>To really bring wealth back to the working class, we must \u2013 gasp \u2013 be willing to reduce the wealth of the upper classes.\u00a0 <\/span>That means lower returns for stockholders, lower bonuses for CEOs, and lower pay for hospital and university administrators.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n There are ways to accomplish this that would seem anti-capitalist \u2013 capping incomes, say, or imposing government limits on bonuses and profits.\u00a0 <\/span>There are also ways that would work within a free-market system.\u00a0 <\/span>As an example, an aspiring doctor must now obtain a lengthy education incurring deep debt, then seek employment with an accredited hospital system that negotiates arbitrary and ever-increasing rates with very little transparency or public accounting.\u00a0 <\/span>A president could offer debt relief to young doctors who set up a private practice with affordable rates.\u00a0 <\/span>Or intellectual property laws could be changed such that pharmaceutical patents expire sooner, encouraging competition.\u00a0 <\/span>Or anti-trust laws could be enforced to break up mega-corporations formed from endless mergers, encouraging greater competition and lower prices.\u00a0 <\/span>Any number of solutions are possible, and I really don\u2019t know which would be the best.\u00a0 <\/span>That is a matter for public discourse and debate.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n From what I\u2019ve seen so far of the Trump administration, I don\u2019t expect to see any such discussion.\u00a0 <\/span>Goldman Sachs is one of the world\u2019s largest investment banks, staffed by millionaires who have overseen and benefited from increasing inequality.\u00a0 <\/span>Bill Clinton chose a former Goldman Sachs executive as his treasury secretary.\u00a0 <\/span>So did George W. Bush.\u00a0 <\/span>Obama picked his chief of staff from the company.\u00a0 <\/span>So far, Trump\u2019s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is a Goldman Sachs alumnus, and another former company executive is one of two finalists for his treasury secretary.\u00a0 <\/span>Trump may be proselytizing to the proletariat about better lives, but he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors on both sides of the aisle when it comes to endorsing the financial system that will continue to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.\u00a0 <\/span>(To be fair, I expected the same financial policy from Hillary, albeit without the scapegoating and hatemongering.)<\/p>\n This could be a long four years, and I fear for those who have been scapegoated by Trump and his supporters, in their wrongheaded hope for a better future.\u00a0 <\/span>My only solace is that perhaps we, as a nation, will see through his empty promises and misdirected anger during that time.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps next time we choose a leader, we will find someone who offers real solutions, who is willing to go against the interests of big corporations, big banks, and wealthy investors and offer solutions that work within a steady-state economy to increase equality and promote financial security for members of all classes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am still struggling to come to terms with Trump\u2019s election last week.\u00a0 There is a part of me that would like to at least give him a chance to break the economic and political status quo, having been … Continue reading \n
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