Economy question - why is a good economy based on people

[FloridaPat]

buying stuff they don't need and is mostly crap? I go into stores, and most of what is sold is either garbage or not needed for survival. Beanie Babies would be a prime example. Gorcery stores have very little fresh food in them. Most of the food is processed.

A good economy seems to be based on people buying anything. And now the economics are worred because the housing industry is slowing down and people won't turn their equity into a buying spree. Seems like a really stupid way to run a world.

[sweetheart]

1. the problem really, is that the word is: "political economy"

The education institutions have let the "economics" ivory tower drift
away from the political, but they are flip sides of the same coin.
America is an effective plutocracy today. It means one dollar = 1 vote,
and the richer you are, the more votes you deserve in how things go.
That is not a democracy at all, it is a property state. The property
state sees human activity as ephemeral, and will pursue all avenues to
devalue "labour" towards kapital.

Then we completely commodify domestic life and make every economic
action of a home in to a job with a wage and working time regulations.
It is the neoliberal econonmic race to the bottom where economics is
seen without its mother ship... the political choice we make as
*free* citizens to choose the organization of our society, to be
represented by it as a democracy, or at least a democratic republic.

This flies in the face of plutocracy, and its voices in the MSM
will drown out all other forms of existance forever until it is
bankrupted from above.

[1932]

2. buying things you need, make you happy, or give you more time to

spend with people you love -- I think we could build a FUNCTIONING, wealthy society based on selling those things,

But I don't know if we could build a polarized society of powerful and powerless people -- the kind we have now which is built on selling people things that we scare them into yhinking they'll suck if they don't own.

[BlackHeart]

3. If I make widgets

and you don't buy any, then I'm out of a job.

[Cassandra]

4. If your company sends widget production overseas...

you're already out of a job.

[salin]

6. bingo

a much more succinct way of making the point I try to make below.

[salin]

5. When we manufactured things in the US

consumption drove investment in the manufacturing sector drove employment and higher wages and made for a broadening economic middle class. It was a healthy market.

As we have shredded our manufacturing base (sending off-shore) - there was little consumption that boosted local economies - instead boosting the wallets of the investing class (higher stock prices) - but encouraging a decreasing amount of domestic investment leading to expanding the decent wage jobs available. The one sector that actually led to $ flowing to communities (ala labor) has been the housing sector - which fueled investment in the financial and labor (home building and service economy facilities such as fast food joints) construction industry.

In this era, buying stuff to buy stuff keeps the markets floating, but doesn't do much for local economies except increase the indebtedness of citizens. Hence the rather worrisome recent statistic that in recent months households have slipped into negative earnings (spending at a higher rate than earning, spending includes paying off debts) - is a very, very big deal.

We are not in a healthy economic period.