Economic Instability and Me
By James W.
2009-04-24
One's opinion on economic views is, generally speaking, a non-moral issue (unless you go to major extremes in the economic philosophy you subscribe to). Nonetheless, some economic approaches are better than others. It would probably be fair to say that the economic model that simultaneously promotes the most prosperity and ethical behavior is the best.
Personally, I subscribe to the Austrian model of economics. The Austrian school of economics is on record of having predicted both the Great Depression and this new economic slump before they happened -- which the vast majority of economists cannot claim. This gives them a great deal of credibility. Also, when I listen to Austrian economists' theories and recommended courses of action, their thoughts make a lot of sense to me. I'm not a trained economist or anything, but their ideas greatly appeal to the logical, analytical, and intuitive structures of my mind. The simplified explanation of the Austrian economic school of thought is that the government needs to leave the economy the heck alone. They say massive government intervention and bailouts don't help things, but make economic slumps even worse and prolong them for much longer than they would normally last. According to them, FDR's New Deal greatly exacerbated the severity and duration of the Great Depression. They even go so far as to say that the Federal Reserve should be done away with so it can stop mucking with interest rates and that the American dollar should be put back on the gold standard. I don't have nearly enough time or space to get into the very complex reasoning behind these assertions. If you're interested, poke around on the Internet or your local library and do a little research on Austrian economics. It shouldn't be hard to find information about it. Anyway, because I fully believe that the Austrian analysis of how a capitalist market should work is correct, this naturally makes me concerned that our government is doing exactly the opposite of what they recommend with huge bailout packages and lots of interference into the free market. I earnestly believe that the current administration's actions are going to prolong and exacerbate the current economic recession. Combine this with the rising tide of immorality and continuous hostile assaults on Christian values in this country, and we're looking at some very dark years ahead. You have no idea how thrilled I am to be graduating from college and looking for a job with this brilliant timing. (For those wondering, my job search begins in June. Having just finished a good 18 years of school, I'm taking a month off to just relax and enjoy myself before I commit to a life of laborious servitude. I think I've earned the brief respite.) Needless to say, my concerns for this country's future take on a much more personal aspect when I consider how all this will shortly be affecting me in my own life. Assuming I can find and hold a decent job, my very first priority is going to be granting myself the highest reasonable degree of independence from the government so I have to rely on it for as little as possible. I've been looking into many, many ways to achieve this. For example, I'm looking into the ability to retain electricity off the grid through various means such as a solar panel, a gas-powered generator, and so on; possibly growing my own vegetable garden; buying tools so I can manufacture some of my own basic needs; etc. Do these sound like extreme measures? Given that the current administration wants to turn America into a nanny state and make us all as dependent on the government as possible -- combined with the fact that I fully expect this government to be far more incompetent at running my life than I would be myself -- I think these are reasonable, sane, and intelligent measures to take in preparation for the coming years. But all that is rather depressing to think about. For now, I'm going to get back to enjoying my time off with a slew of games and pretending these problems don't exist for the next month. There will be plenty of time to worry about these things soon... This blog entry has been viewed 200 times.
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