“All evil begins with a lie. The biggest evil comes from the biggest lies, and the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. And we lie to ourselves because we’re afraid to take ourselves on.” — Brother John
Many of us like to spread the belief that our destiny is in the hands of “The Economy,” blissfully forgetting that we create and control said Economy.
Silly
The silly political rambling about our national debt and raising our debt ceiling compound the realization that our government leaders lack the innate entrepreneurial skills needed to get the most powerful nation in the world out of its slump. None of the politicians have written a viable script of much-needed economic innovation, a singular economic compass to which all our economic, financial, and political systems should abide. We must treat our country more like a company, and to reference my entrepreneurial background, our country lacks a viable business plan.
I call it silly, not because our national debt shouldn’t be taken seriously, but because the childish partisan bickering proves that neither political aisle has its eye on the economic ball.
The real issue we face is not whether we should raise the debt ceiling to pay the bills we incurred as a result of the “spaghetti governance” spanning many presidencies but why the governmental process is unable to create and maintain sustainable high-performance economic systems to leverage our renowned innovative capacity in a way that income far outweighs the expense.
The rest of the world prepared to loan us the money has a more well-versed belief in our capacity than our elected officials – as I do.
Our House of Cards
We have recently seen our economic and financial systems collapse, and now it dragged along with it a political system that let those systems grow out of control in the first place. Our systems have failed; therefore, our implementation of capitalism has failed.
Capitalism is not a failure, mind you, just our implementation of it:
Failure of our economic system
Our economic freedom is a lie. An economic system that supports a financial system eleven times the production size is the outcome of deploying a laissez-faire financial system in which gambling on production provides a better standard of living than producing something. We failed to implement the proper free-market principles to ensure financial markets themselves are genuinely free markets. As such, investing in self grew the financial sector excessively. We should not be surprised that gambling is not a sustainable economic strategy.
Failure of our financial system
Our financial freedom is a lie. By economic principle, financial systems that are not free-market systems inevitably turn subprime. Therefore not only the sheer size of our financial system becomes a burden, but the massive deployment of uniform risk deflates the value of its underlying asset. The quality of the investable attribute diminishes over time to the point where the financial systems cannot detect anything outside its uniform focal point. And thus, by design, our financial systems are regressive to the underlying assets and hurt rather than extrapolate their exposure and success.
Failure of our government system
Our government representation as the cumulative opinion of our people is a lie. Only about 30% of the U.S. population votes. That means our complex political system, comprised of various local and state governments, The House, The Senate, and The Presidency, have not turned on and instead disenfranchised 70% of us. How can a political system unable to garner the interest of most people in the U.S. appoint an outlier as President with the guts to attack the fundamental flaws of our economic and financial systems? It cannot; instead, the political system responsible for this mediocrity will spawn more. Could it be that most of our people have already voted for the antithesis of today’s “leaders”?
The Upside
We, the people – and no one else – are responsible for the systems (political, economic, financial, or otherwise) to enhance our lives and create new opportunities for those who strive.
“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” — Thomas Jefferson
We dictate how much or little power a President has to affect real change in our ailing systems. And the ineffectiveness of those systems has become the ball and chain in our performance as a nation and our contribution to any merit in it.
Not because, but despite all of our flawed systems, the American people persevered, and much of our innovation still reigns in the world. And that is why the world is ready to loan us the money we may need to fund change. But our clock is ticking.
Many emerging economies have the opportunity not to incur the cost of change from an imperfect past and do it right from the start. Europe skipped analog mobile telephony altogether and invented a much better digital version called GSM, which now dominates the world.
Innovative nations can learn from our mistakes and implement a better economic system to maintain a healthier balance between finance and production. Their challenge, and our advantage, will be that an innovative society demands significant investment and dedication and is not built overnight. Some believe starting now will take 30 years to develop.
Real Change
Applying more regulations to a faulty system causes a delay in that system’s ultimate demise and reduces the years of advantage we still have over emerging nations. A President and government promoting those regulations are just kicking the can further down the road for others to combat.
“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” — Thomas Paine
We need a natural leader in this country, not one who meddles in the people’s business but ensures the economic transactions adhere to free-market principles, which we have failed to define and implement.
Not free markets have failed, but our pretense of them. Efficient economic systems behave just like traffic. You can define your destiny if you act in and conform to a manner that protects every other participant’s safety and freedom.
Real change will come from a leader who helps our country look in the mirror and learns from the lies of freedom we perpetuate today. And when – and only when – we preempt those lies with a new operating system for humanity, will the innovative capacity of our country be able to pay handsomely for the expenses we incur in breeding the innovation the world genuinely cares about.
I believe in the new United States of America for the following reasons:
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again”. — Thomas Paine
