The Free Market: Hates us, loves our money

I get tired of hearing conservatives tell us how the free market should decide things that are important to us, things like (but not limited to) health care. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that the free market doesn’t really care about our health and well being, not unless they can make a buck off it.

The free market doesn’t care if we’re all obese or diabetic because of the food they sell us, for instance, because then they can create “pharmaceuticals” to combat these conditions, or exercise equipment, or books about eating healthy. They can offer us Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choices to create the illusion that they want us to eat better. If we were all lean and healthy, the stock market would drop.

The free market doesn’t care about the planet either. They give us the cars that use too much gas, insisting that this is what we demand. They come up with new gadgets that require ever-more electricity, stressing the grid and dumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They build homes that are hard to heat or cool naturally, but that’s okay because they have all the air conditioners and heat pumps we need.

Conservatives revere the free market. They see it as a beneficient god to whom we can pray for all the good things life has to offer, a god that will answer our prayers. Problem is, we just don’t know what to pray for.

It’s the stupid economy?

With the economy overtaking all other issues in the primaries, the Republican candidates are fighting to wear the Reagan mantle. I wouldn’t care if voters remembered that with the “trickle-down theory” of Reaganomics, very little actually trickled down to those who needed it most. The reality was, the upper middle class was a kind of sponge, with everything reaching that level going no further. It was a periond when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, a trend that continues today despite an intervening Democratic administration in the person of Bill Clinton, when the sponge was not removed but thinned a bit.

The belief that wealth will trickle down to the lowest classes is false. It never has, and it never will. The wealthy are greedy, and they do everything in their power to hang on to as much of it as possible. They have a disproportionate amount of influence over elected officials who are supposed to belong to all of us, and thanks to tax cuts and tax loopholes they do not pay their fair share of taxes.

I’ve long been an advocate of the “trickle-up theory,” and I sure would like to hear a candidate bring it up. The theory is simple: give the poor more money. A lot more. Make them unpoor. Raise the mimimum wage still more. Bring everyone above the poverty line. Enable everyone to afford to pay taxes, but keep tax rates much lower for those below a certain reasonable level. The poor will then have more money to spend, and they will spend it… and that money will trickle up. The poor are not executives or stockholders, but the money they spend enriches those who are. So give the poor more money and they will make those at the top wealthier. And then, raise tax rates on those above a certain reasonable income level, and close loopholes. The treasury will thrive. Problems will be fixed. And if the rich don’t like it, screw them. They will still be wealthy, perhaps just as wealthy as they were before, since their increased tax burden might be offset by the added income from all the new money the poor are spending.

But even if they take a slight hit, so what. It’s time for all good wealthy Americans — most of whom are God-fearing Christians — to give greed a rest.

Common cents

Despite almost overwhelming evidence, there are still many who doubt that human activity is causing global warming. For this reason, many of them don’t see this as a reason to change the way we supply our energy — and many don’t even think we need to at all.

Global warming aside, there are other reasons to move away from fossil fuels. National security, for example. The technology exists to make us independent from foreign oil, to permit us to be the sole supplier of our own energy. What more reason would we need?

Well, we’re also addicted to coal, with about half of our electricity coming from coal-fired plants. Coal mining ravages the landscape, adversely affects local and regional ecosystems, and the jobs it creates are filled with risks. What coal miner wouldn’t prefer a job in a plant that made wind turbines or solar panels to one that required a descent into the bowels of the earth, where tunnel collapses and explosions are very real threats.

And there are still other reasons. Were the fledgling companies now manufacturing and marketing alternative energy systems in the US encouraged to grow because of incentives and increased demand, it would be comparable to the oil boom of the early 20th century. Those wise enough to invest would profit. New jobs would be created, good-paying jobs. Tax revenues would rise. And the trade deficit would shrink.

More reasons? Eventually energy costs would come down and stabilize, consumers would have more money to spend, save or invest, and the economy would begin a steady, sustainable climb.

Still more reasons? Well, if these aren’t enough already, I’ll think of some more.

A new energy wrinkle

Today’s New York Times resports that within several years countries that are now net exporters of oil may become oil importers, thereby adding to the world’s oil supplies. This is due in large part to their increasing wealth from oil revenues, resulting in higher standards of living for citizens who are becoming energy consumers in ever increasing numbers. In Iran, gasoline is subsidized and available to its drivers for as little as seven cents per gallon, a practice that encourages wasteful habits, observes the Times. (An irony here — the folks who are wondering why in blazes Iran might want to build nuclear power plants when it is supposedly oil-rich? Well, maybe Iran sees the writing on the wall too. I’d feel more comfortable if they were building solar plants, though, since I’m sure they have an abundance of sunshine.)

There should be no surprises in this story, since wise voices have for a long time warned of the imperative to get off oil. It’s just that dumb ears have refused to listen. I expect the owners of those dumb ears to add this news to their justification to open more Alaskan wilderness to oil production, or expand offshore oil exploration, or increase production of ethanol from corn, and so forth — all the wrong solutions that might merely just postpone the inevitable, and probably not for long.

We’ve wasted so much time addressing this inevitable, we’re almost certain to experience an extended crunch time. One has to laugh. It’s possible to fantasize about a gradual, painless segue from oil to alternative sources of energy, but you know what they say about fantasies. They seldom become reality. And in this case, the time has passed for that one to happen.

I used to think that I probably wouldn’t live long enough to see the shit really hit the fan. Now, I’m not so sure. Barring a miracle, my income is likely to remain relatively fixed for the rest of my life, which means with each passing year my standard of living will drop. And I won’t be alone. But those of us who will suffer most really have little to say about our future — even if we have good ideas. Too many of us have voted for the wrong people for the wrong reasons for too long, and now we’re paying the price. Too bad we don’t realize it.