Daily Discussion: How do you fix the American and/or European economy?

America seems to be slooooowly recovering from the shit hitting the fan in 2008, while Europe looks like it hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. Depending on whichever one you want to talk about, and the two are both connected and separate, how would you fix the economy in America and/or the US?

Here’s my two cents, just because I want to participate, and disagree or agree as you wish:

Just as at the beginning of the 20th century, America and Europe felt the impact in several ways of industrialization and monopolistic capitalism deeply burrowing its way into politics and it didn’t work out so well. At the beginning of the 21st century, we’re seeing what happens when global mega-corp capitalism becomes too intertwined in politics and it also doesn’t work.

Governments cannot be run like businesses. Keeping spending in check and keeping your books clean and costs reasonable are important, but they are two fundamentally different organizations. For business, the bottom line is always the bottom line. The business is mainly beholden to its board and stockholders and the stockholders mainly just want the price of their stock to increase over time, so as long as the company fares decently in the public opinion, as long as the stock price keeps going up, stockholders are happy, and so every time there’s an opportunity to cut costs and keep the engine robust, it happens. 

Governments on the other hand, should be mostly beholden to its people, and its people should have their say on the rulings of government, but government should provide the fertile ground for people pursuing their inalienable rights. A healthy and happy populace creates a healthy economy. If people are working in jobs they enjoy, or at least jobs they can stand, if they miss less days of work due to stress or sickness, if they have enjoyment in life, they will create a strong society and economy. Even if this means that the government has to temporarily spend somewhat beyond its current budget, the way to fix the economy is to fix the people. If people are angry, frightened, sick and paranoid, it will reflect into the economy and vice versa.

The Eurozone has a number of countries that are traditionally high on international happiness scales, but their current turmoil has everything to do with a number of political leaders who thought that despite better judgment, it would be cool to try and create an international currency without a unified government to back it up. Instead, they decided that it would be fine to have a council of idiots to periodically review the situation. But then they went crazy, inviting countries that shouldn’t have been invited and bending the rules and the whole house of cards began to come down.

Now, the best thing to do would be to just rip off the band-aid. Put measures in place to prevent rushes on banks, kick Greece out and slowly start carving the whole thing back up again. If France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands want to stay, they can stay. 

That was a lot of typing. That was more than two cents, I think.